Central Bank Statement on Brexit
The Central Bank of Ireland issued a statement regarding the results of the UK’s referendum on membership of the European Union on June 24th.
Read the Central Bank's statement.
Central Bank Publishes Amended UCITS Regulations
The Central Bank published the first set of amending Central Bank UCITS Regulations on 22 June 2016 - the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013 (Section 48(1))(Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities)(Amendment) Regulations 2016 which were signed on 8 June 2016.
Read the amending Central Bank UCITS Regulations.
CP86 Update
The Central Bank of Ireland has been “engaged in an initiative to examine and improve fund management company effectiveness since early 2014 (known as “CP86”)”.
The third phase of the initiative has just been published in the form of a Consultation Paper on “Fund Management Company Effectiveness – Managerial Functions, Operational Issues and Procedural Matters”.
Read the consultation paper in full.
Central Bank Issues Revised Market Abuse Rules and Guidance
The new Market Abuse Regime, which consists of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU 596/2014 - ‘MAR’) and the Market Abuse Directive on criminal sanctions for market abuse (Directive 2014/57/EU or 'CSMAD' or ‘MAD II’) became applicable in Ireland and across the European Union on 3 July 2016.
In Ireland, the European Union (Market Abuse) Regulations 2016 (2016 Regulations) is the Irish statutory instrument transposing CSMAD (and elements of MAR including the delegated acts) into Irish law. It replaces the previous Market Abuse (Directive 2003/6/EC) Regulations 2005 (S.I. 342 of 2005).
The Central Bank of Ireland has issued revised Market Abuse Rules (the “Rules”) and Guidance on the "Market Abuse Regulatory Framework" (the “Guidance”), effective July 3 to reflect the implementation of the new Market Abuse Regime.
The Rules and Guidance are available here.
Anti-Money Laundering Update
Following the publication of the Central Bank Report on Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism and Financial Sanctions Compliance in the Irish Funds Sector in November 2015, the Irish Funds AML/CTF working group is in the process of preparing a Q&A update with respect to the requirements to keep customer due diligence documentation up-to-date. Further guidance on this is expected.
In addition, the Central Bank is engaging with industry as part of a data gathering exercise referred to as the CBI Redemption and Investor Concentration Survey”. Irish Funds has written to the CBI expressing industry concerns with the collation of this level of data and is seeking an additional time of 4 weeks, until the end of July, to comply with the data gathering request.
Read the Central Bank Themed Inspection Report in full.
Investor Money Regulations Update
The Investor Money Regulations (IMR) became effective on 1 July 2016.
The Irish Funds IMR Working Group is in the process of finalising an IMR Q&A document due to be released shortly.
Read the updated guidance in full.
