On 10 January 2019, the European Commission (“Commission”) published a report on the impact of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (“AIFMD”). It provides and assesses evidence for the Commission's mandatory review of the AIFMD and sets out the findings of a survey conducted by KPMG of the stakeholders affected by the AIFMD.
The report suggests that the current rules contained within the AIFMD have significantly contributed to creating a single market for alternative investment funds (“AIFs”) by establishing a harmonised regulatory and supervisory framework. The report also asserts that the AIFMD provisions have contributed to the achievement of the AIFMD’s specific and operational objectives effectively, efficiently and coherently.
However, the report also identifies areas that require further analysis, including:
- inadequate, duplicative reporting requirements and overlapping reporting obligations with other EU legislation;
- harmonisation of the calculation methodologies for leverage across the AIFMD, the UCITS Directive and other relevant legislation;
- impairments to the effectiveness of the valuation rules due to the binary choice between internal or external valuation and the differing national interpretations of the extent of the liability of external valuers;
- the coherence of the remuneration rules with other pieces of legislation and guidelines;
- excessive investor disclosure requirements;
- inconsistencies between the investor disclosure rules and other EU investor disclosure regimes; and
- a lack of transparency regarding the differing national rules and supervisory processes relating to the marketing passport.
The Commission will continue its review of the AIFMD and this year will report to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, as required by the AIFMD.
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