Laws and Regulations

Financial regulators across Europe are keeping a close eye on their Luxembourg counterpart CSSF, which is reviewing its rules that tell investment firms how to handle errors in calculations of Net Asset Values, or NAVs. “I think that we may consider the CSSF approach as a best practice.”

Following 1.55 million euro in regulatory fines, Luxembourg investment firm Fuchs & Associés Finance SA is stepping up efforts to address internal compliance problems, adding additional directors and compliance staff to bring its governance back in line with legal requirements.

Luxembourg’s financial regulator CSSF has found shortcomings in the application of measures to fight money laundering and terrorism finance at fund services provider Maitland Luxembourg SA and issued a fine of 266,000 euro. 

Belgian police authorities have launched a criminal investigation in Antwerp-based stockbroker Merit Capital, a Belgian press report said on Thursday. The probe is linked to its transactions with H2O Asset Management.

Merit Capital’s future is up in the air after several attempts to find a buyer failed. Luxembourg’s Fuchs & Associés was forced to step back as a possible buyer last month. 

The European Union, under its taxonomy, requires SRI funds to declare what part of their portfolio is green by 1 January 2023, but there is still much work to be done to address the pitfalls in the EU’s sustainable finance framework, Triodos Investment Management’s Hadewych Kuiper and Nikkie Pelzer (photo) said in an interview. “Some asset managers prefer to classify their sustainable funds under Article 6” because it requires less reporting, making it cheaper.

Luxembourg’s financial regulator CSSF imposed a total of 4.3 million euro in fines on financial services companies in the Grand Duchy last year, less than the 6 million euro in fines issued in 2020. Most fines were imposed under laws preventing money-laundering and terrorism finance, according to CSSF’s 2021 annual report.

The number of complaints received about financial services in Luxembourg last year rose by 25 percent, with clients in Germany and the U.K. accounting for almost half of them, according to the latest CSSF annual report.

One month after the EU ordered the investment sector to ask clients for their sustainability preferences, investment firms appear to show limited enthusiasm for complying with the new requirements as complexity around the EU’s ESG rules persists and greenwashing fears linger.

Private consumers seeking to invest in virtual assets through investment funds, despite the massive losses incurred by investors in certain cryptocurrencies, should be aware they are doing so without the protection of financial regulatory oversight, Luxembourg financial regulator the CSSF said.

The CSSF document was titled “Notice to private consumers in the context of investment funds providing exposure to virtual assets”. 

A European screening exercise of prospectus approvals that involved Luxembourg’s financial supervisor CSSF has concluded that EU regulators need to be more efficient in their assessments and that more clarity needs to be provided on the use of  “additional criteria” that national supervisors apply.