Global asset management and funds round up

We bring you another Eversheds Sutherland virtual Asset Management and Funds Seminar in the hope that our next AMFS will be an in person event. We have two webinars for you and a podcast. As you have come to expect from our asset management team, our first webinar relates to ESG and provides an update for asset managers. Our podcast is on our perennial favourite topic of Brexit, this time the practical implications of Brexit for the EU financial services market. Our second webinar focuses on long term and illiquid assets (LTAF), but we fully expect this to be a recurring theme for some time to come.

• Webinar: UK ESG update for asset managers
• Podcast: FAQs for UK firms providing cross-border financial services in the EU post-brexit
• Webinar: Practical steps to setting up a Long Term Asset Fund (LTAF)

Eversheds Sutherland’s Financial Services team has been busy helping clients tackle the continual developments in the asset management space across the globe. We look forward to continuing to work with you and hope you'll be able to attend our asset management and funds event in person in June, we will provide further details on this in due course.

As well as our webinars and podcast highlighted above, we are proud of our ongoing thought leadership output, and we bring you a selection of our client briefings which are relevant to financial services.

Michaela Walker, Global Head of Financial Services and Asset Management

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ESG (Enviromental, Social, Governance)

Few issues attract focus, attention and at times controversy, in the same way as environment, social and corporate governance issues.  The rise and rise of ESG as an issue in the UK and globally was accelerated by COP26, held in Glasgow in late 2021.

We have seen a shift in the products being brought to market, and a corresponding trend of interventionism from regulators and policymakers.  Initiatives on ESG matters are arriving at a phenomenal rate, and we are tracking a large body of new rules and regulations coming that will have direct and comprehensive impacts on financial services institutions and the products they manufacture.

UK ESG update for asset managers

Visit our financial services ESG page

FCA extends climate-related disclosures to include standard listed companies and introduces new guidance

The SFDR RTS on taxonomy-related disclosures and a further delay to implementation

Discussion Paper DP21/4 - Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and investment labels

Greening Finance: A Roadmap to Sustainable Investing in the UK - A view from Financial Services

Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures: Time to get ahead of compliance before compliance is ahead of you

IOSCO’s report on ESG ratings and data providers

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Funds

Funds continue to face a dynamic regulatory landscape. With COVID hopefully largely behind us, the focus for funds has shifted to how the UK and EU will regulate in the post-Brexit era, with intentional divergence starting to emerge in the regulatory reforms of both the UK and the EU.  The possibility of UK financial services regulation being recognised as equivalent by the EU remains a distant hope.  It will require a UK-EU MoU to be agreed before the EU will start to consider UK equivalence, and that is tied up with intractable and otherwise unrelated disputes about fish and the Northern Ireland protocol.

For UK funds, the new big thing is the FCA’s Consumer Duty, which you can expect to hear much more about, including when we resume our in person AMFS breakfasts.

Discover our EEA access tracker for non-EEA financial services firms

Practical steps to prepare for IFPR

FAQs for UK firms providing cross-border financial services in the EU post-Brexit

National Security and Investment act: What this means for private equity managers and investors

ESMA seeks to tighten scrutiny of firms’ use of tied agents under MiFID II framework

AIFMD II: The commission’s proposals to reform AIFMD and the UCITS directive

Book your place now for our Global tax trends in fund investing webinar

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Long term asset funds (LTAF)

The UK’s new Long Term Asset Fund (LTAF), a vehicle for investment in infrastructure and illiquid assets, is expected to play a key role in the provision of capital investment in support of the UK government’s COVID recovery and Levelling Up programs, in particular to facilitate investment by defined contribution (DC) pensions funds.

Watch the LTAF Webinar recording

Review of the Productive Finance Working Group’s recommendations to the FCA on long term asset funds

UK FCA policy statement on long term assets funds (LTAFs)

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Crypto

The Regulation of Digital Assets Through an International Lens

Regulation of crypto-assets: challenges for regulators and the path forwards

Navigating digital currency: Central Bank Digital Currencies

New regulatory requirements prior to marketing crypto assets in Spain

Crypto - are we at the dawn of a new asset class?

The Law and Blockchains: A Regulatory Perspective

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Financial crime

FCA concludes first AML prosecution of a bank

FCA Imposes £642k Fine for Lapses in Financial Crime Control

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Financial Regulation

Dates to watch out for - Financial Services regulatory calendar 2022

Planning for a new Consumer duty

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Institutional Investors

FundsTrack report

Four things you need to know about the Pensions Scheme Act 2021

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Insurance

A glimpse of the planned Solvency II reforms - What could it all mean?

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Luxembourg

The CSSF launches notification procedures for UCITS and AIFS for pre-contractual disclosures under the taxonomy regulation

ESMA launches a Common Supervisory Action on the valuation of UCITS and open-ended AIFs

Luxembourg investment funds letter

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Personal Responsibility

Navigating individual accountability: an overview of key jurisdictions in financial services

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Sanctions

Russian and Belarusian sanctions updates

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Temporary permissions

FCA issues stark warning for TPR firms

For more information and guidance on any of the matters above, please contact your usual Eversheds contact or get in touch with the individuals listed in the briefings.