European Structured Products: Legal and Regulatory Materials

UCITS and ETFs

PRIPs

12/18/2012 ESMA Guidelines on ETFs and UCITS
The purpose of these guidelines is to protect investors by providing guidance on the information that should be communicated with respect to index-tracking UCITS and UCITS ETFs together with specific rules to be applied by UCITS when entering into over-the-counter financial derivative transactions and efficient portfolio management techniques. Finally, the guidelines set out criteria that should be respected by financial indices in which UCITS invest. These guidelines were developed further to the consultation paper issued by ESMA on 25 July 2012.
09/25/2012 ESMA Q&A - Key Investor Information Document (KIID) for UCITS
The purpose of the Q&A was to promote common supervisory approaches in the application and implementation of UCITS IV. Responses were provided to questions from the general public and competent authorities relating to the practical application of the UCITS framework. The content was aimed at competent authorities to ensure that, in their supervisory activities in relation to UCITS, their approaches converged with those of ESMA. However, the answers were also intended to help UCITS management companies by providing clarity as to the content of the UCITS rules, rather than creating an extra layer of requirements. ESMA will update the Q&A as and when new questions are received.
08/22/2012 FSA Consultation Paper regarding the restrictions on the retail distribution of UCIS and close substitutes
The consultation is in response to the findings of the FSA with regards to the UCIS market in the UK. The FSA noted that a majority of retail promotions and sales of UCIS under review failed to meet the requirements set out, exposing ordinary investors to significant potential for detriment. Thus the paper proposed intervention in the market by banning the promotion of UCIS and close substitutes to ordinary retail investors in the UK. Finalised rules and guidance are expected in the first quarter of 2013. This legislation is based on proposals put forth previously in the FSA Discussion Paper on Product Intervention (DP 11/1). A number of responses were received by the FSA as a result of the consultation paper, the most notable being the response from the Joint Association Committee on Retail Structured Products.
07/26/2012 Commission Consultation Paper on UCITS V
The Commission published this consultation paper to determine whether further changes to the UCITS regime were required under a new UCITS VI. The areas focused on in the consultation included (amongst others) portfolio management, liquidity management tools, money market funds and long term investments.
07/09/2012 ESMA Q&A - Risk Measurement and Calculation of Global Exposure and Counterparty Risk for UCITS
The purpose of this document was to promote common supervisory approaches and practices in the application of the UCITS Directive and its implementing measures. It did this by providing responses to questions posed by the general public and competent authorities in relation to the practical application of the UCITS framework. The content of the document was aimed at competent authorities under UCITS to ensure that in their supervisory activities their actions were converging along the lines of the responses adopted by ESMA.
07/03/2012 UCITS V Legislative Proposal
The Commission adopted this legislative proposal for a directive amending Directive 2009/65/EC relating to UCITS as regards depositary functions, remuneration policies and sanctions.
03/23/2012 ESMA Guidelines on UCITS
This paper set out ESMA’s guidelines to competent authorities and UCITS management companies on risk measurement and the calculation of global exposure for certain types of structured UCITS. These guidelines proposed, for certain types of structured UCITS, an optional regime for the calculation of the global exposure using the commitment approach. These guidelines supplement the guidelines produced by ESMA’s predecessor, CESR, in July 2010.
03/2012 IOSCO Consultation Report: Principles for the Regulation of ETFs
This report highlighted the key regulatory issues concerning ETFs and proposed 15 investor protection principles to provide practical guidance for both the industry and regulators. It also briefly examined certain market structure and financial stability issues. The proposed principles concerned ETFs that are organised as Collective Investment Schemes (CISs), and are not intended to cover other exchange traded products that are not organised as CISs. The consultation period ended on 27 June 2012.
01/30/2012 ESMA Consultation Paper and List of Responses - Guidelines on ETFs and Other UCITS Issues
ESMA published this consultation paper setting out proposed guidelines on UCITS ETFs and other UCITS-related issues. The proposals covered both synthetic and physical UCITS ETFs and detailed the obligations to come for UCITS ETFs, index-tracking UCITS, efficient portfolio management techniques, total return swaps and strategy indices for UCITS. ESMA’s proposals therefore were wider than ETFs and covered such areas as the use of total return swaps by any UCITS, for which ESMA envisaged additional obligations with respect to the collateral to be provided, or UCITS investing in strategy indices, where the requirements on eligibility of such indices were tightened. The proposals also included placing an obligation on UCITS ETFs to use an identifier and facilitating the ability of investors to redeem their shares, whether in the secondary market or directly with the ETF provider. ESMA also published a list of responses to such consultation.
07/22/2011 Discussion Paper - ESMA's Policy Orientations on Guidelines for UCITS Exchange-Traded Funds and Structured UCITS
ESMA published this discussion paper setting out policy orientations on guidelines for UCITS Exchange-Traded Funds and structured UCITS. In the discussion paper, ESMA examined the possible measures that could be introduced to mitigate the risk that particularly complex products, which may be difficult to understand and evaluate, are made available to retail investors. In this document, ESMA also raised the potential systemic risk caused by these types of fund and their impact on financial stability. ESMA stated it would use the feedback received to this paper to develop draft guidelines for such funds. ESMA later published the responses to such discussion paper.
12/14/2010 Consultation Paper - European Commission's Consultation on the UCITS Depositary Function and on the UCITS Managers' Remuneration
The Commission published a consultation paper focusing on the duties of a depository (safe-keeping, oversight and delegation), the remuneration of UCITS managers and how the relevant rules could be better harmonized.
07/28/2010 CESR Guidelines on UCITS
This paper set out CESR’s guidelines on risk measurement and the calculation of global exposure and counterparty risk for UCITS. These guidelines accompanied the level 2 implementing measures in the context of risk measurement and the calculation of global exposure and counterparty risk for UCITS. The key purpose of these guidelines was to provide stakeholders with detailed methodologies in order to foster a level playing field among Member States in the area of risk measurement and the calculation of global exposure and counterparty risk for UCITS.
07/13/2009 UCITS IV - Directive 2009/65/EC on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to UCITS.
05/28/2009 Press Release from the European Commission regarding UCITS
The Commission published a press release confirming the intention to enhance confidence in the UCITS regime in the wake of the Madoff fraud and the Lehman insolvency and to track developments for non-UCITS funds in Europe.

European Structured Products: Legal and Regulatory Materials UCITS and ETFs

European Structured Products: Legal and Regulatory Materials

UCITS and ETFs