Laws and Regulations

Former Portuguese finance minister and Morgan Stanley banker Maria Luís Albuquerque, known for her austerity-heavy tenure during the eurozone crisis, is now the European Commission’s nominee for the influential role of Commissioner for Financial Services. Her appointment has already ignited controversy.

JP Morgan and State Street have reinforced their dominance in Luxembourg’s fund industry, according to the latest Monterey Insights Luxembourg Fund Report 2024.

The revamped Eltif 2.0 framework, effective since January, is breathing new life into the sector, with Luxembourg playing a central role in this expansion of the market for European Long-Term Investment Funds.

As Europe seeks ways to address greenwashing, supervisors have proposed broad reforms to the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regime (SFDR). To enhance transparency, they propose stricter labelling. Together with the addition of a transition investing category, these changes could redefine sustainable investing.

In the apparently almost never-ending battle against greenwashing, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) set a next step by publishing, on 21 August 2024, its new guidelines on funds’ names using ESG or sustainability-related terms (the Guidelines).

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has introduced new regulations requiring fund managers to disclose their investment holdings on a monthly basis, replacing the current quarterly reporting schedule.

In light of the recent blockchain law proposal, founder and CEO of Moniflo, Georges Bock, shares his views on the potential of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in transforming capital market infrastructure.

The outages and disruptions impacting the financial sector this month serve as stern reminders about vulnerabilities linked to tech reliance. Regulations such as DORA, however, show a certain maturity to pre-empt such problems, experts say.

Banque Havilland, once a discreet player in the European private banking sector, is now caught in a severe regulatory storm. This case has also reignited old tensions related to the 2009 sale of Icelandic bank Kaupthing’s Luxembourg unit to the Rowland family, the financiers behind Banque Havilland.

Marc Meyers and Sebastiaan Hooghiemstra at Loyens & Loeff highlight the key changes in the draft regulatory technical standards for Eltifs, and see the latest proposal by the European Commission as a “reasonably workable” match for Luxembourg’s market practice.