MFA Comment Letter to Financial Conduct Authority on AIFMD Implementation

The MFA submitted a comment letter to the UK's Financial Conduct Authority in response to the FCA's second consultation paper on implementation of the AIFMD.In the letter, the MFA encouraged the FCA to: (1) amend the proposed FCA regulations to provide a one-year transition period for all fund managers covered by the AIFMD; (2) permit UK fund managers to use one or more depositories when marketing non-EU funds; (3) adopt, as proposed, a qualitative approach with respect to determining when a delegation arrangement would lead to a so-called "letter box" entity; (4) adopt a residence test, rather than the proposed domicile test, for determining when a manager is marketing to EU investors, in order to promote greater consistency and certainty in applying the AIFMD rules, and to avoid potential conflicts of law that could result from applying a test based on domicile; and (5) amend the FCA's discussion on passive marketing to avoid the use of narrow examples that create uncertainty about the scope of passive marketing activities.

View letter here (links externally to MFA website).