The French Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) has distributed its position on the European Commission’s consultation on Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD).
The AIFMD seeks to create a level playing field across Europe for Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) and is part of the overal goal of a Capital Markets Union (CMU). The AIFMD may also impact crypto-assets or, perhaps, crowdfunded securities.
The AMF states that it advocates an improved and harmonized regulatory framework for asset management, through amendments to the AIFMD. The AMF supports the following proposals:
- In situations where supervision is fragmented between several authorities due to the use of the management passport, a leading supervisory role should be given to the competent authority in charge of supervising the fund manager to monitor its activities across the EU. This would include a comprehensive access to relevant supervisory information on all funds managed by this entity;
- While acknowledging the benefits of delegation to structure businesses and source expertise, as highlighted by ESMA, certain types of extensive delegation arrangements – such as those where fund managers solely provide middle and back-office services without retaining any portfolio management expertise – should be scrutinized to ensure AIFM and UCITS managers remain ultimately in charge of the key business functions and decisions;
- A thorough examination of the current reporting requirements is necessary to enhance regulators’ capacity to supervise investment funds and monitor the different types of risks that may arise from their activities, from both a micro and macro perspective;
- A common EU framework is needed in order to make the use of LMTs available in all EU jurisdictions with gates becoming a mandatory LMT;
- Further harmonisation and consistency should be introduced between AIFMD, UCITS and MIFID to reduce unnecessary differences in obligations between entities providing the same services.
The EU consultation, along with individual responses, is available here.