Tuesday 05 July

The UK's proposed Partnership (Accounts) Regulations 2010 (2010 Regulations), are intended to remedy a loophole created by the Partnership (Accounts) Regulations 2008 (2008 Regulations), which may catch out many private equity structures using Scottish and English LPs.

In this overview, Wayne Atkinson considers how Guernsey has the opportunity to strengthen its position in the alternative funds market by maintaining an industry-driven regulatory environment coupled with legislative innovation.

Tuesday 05 July

The AIFM Directive will finally enter force on 21 July having been published in the Official Journal of the EU on 1 July. As a consequence the timetable for the directive's development now looks like this:

• 22 July 2013  Date by which member states should give effect to the directive through transposition into national laws.
• 22 July 2015 Deadline for ESMA report on passporting and 3^rd country fund passports.

We will keep you updated with changes or amendments as they happen.

Tuesday 05 July

Jersey has issued a Consultation Paper, the proposals of which have the potential to simplify and, to the extent feasible codify, the Codes of Practice governing the seven finance activities, including Fund Services Business. 

The main idea is to clarify, align and augment the seven Codes of Practice. A positive spin-off would be that regulated bodies which are governed by more than one Code of Practice would be subject to a single set of requirements in place of service or product specific requirements. The Consultation Paper is currently open for comment and you may find the draft codes of practice for investment business and funds services business useful.

Tuesday 05 July

On 17 June 2011 the Guernsey Financial Services Commission published its annual report, which contained a number of positives for those in the funds sector in Guernsey.

Particularly of note were a number of key objectives the Investment Business Division set out for 2011. These included: 

• "Engage with the European Securities and Markets Authority, as well as HM Treasury and the FSA, on Alternative Investment Managers Directive and access of Guernsey funds to EU markets";
• "Continue to communicate with the FSA in respect of designation of Class A schemes for marketing in the UK"; and
• "Review and consider the existing Class B and Class Q open-ended fund rules with a view to updating and amending them to reflect current experience". 

Further positive news was contained in the statistics published in the report. The GFSC noted that in 2010, 48 new POI licences were granted and 89 new funds were authorised or registered.

Meanwhile closed-ended funds and non-Guernsey schemes have significantly broken previous records for funds under management in Guernsey and the total net asset value of Guernsey-domiciled open-ended funds increased 14.2 per cent in 2010 to £57.9 billion.

Tuesday 05 July

Since our last newsletter, in addition to our merger Collas Crill has announced its plans to open an office in Singapore. Sean Cheong, a partner in our Guernsey office, will relocate to Singapore to head up the new office, which will practise Guernsey and Jersey law.

Sean said: "We are very excited to be the first Channel Islands law firm to set up in Singapore. We feel it is important to be able to support our clients who have operations in the region. It also gives us a great opportunity to access a growing market from a well established hub."

On a related note are a couple of articles by Collas Crill lawyers illustrating the attractiveness of the Channel Islands to a global market and Asia in particular. Adrian Odell writes on Platform Funds for India and Paul Wilkes makes a case for Guernsey.