Lois et réglementation

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.

Nearly half of all complaints received by Luxembourg’s financial supervisor CSSF came from Germany and the United Kingdom, with the Grand Duchy itself coming into third place. Luxembourg’s financial regulator received complaints from 58 countries in 2021, it said in its annual report. Total complaints received last year were up by one quarter.

La taxe annuelle sur comptes-titres (ci-après : » TACT «) est applicable (entre autres) aux comptes-titres détenus en Belgique, même s’ils sont détenus par des non-résidents.

Tant le législateur que l’administration avaient reconnu les effets possibles d’une convention de double imposition, de sorte que les comptes-titres et leurs titulaires étrangers ne seraient pas soumis à cet impôt (une limitation des droits d’imposition de la Belgique).

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.

La croissance des fonds enregistrés au Luxembourg en tant que fonds d’investissement alternatifs réservés, connus sous le nom de Raifs, a augmenté de manière significative au cours du premier semestre de cette année, selon une analyse des données du registre du commerce luxembourgeois par Investment Officer Luxembourg. 

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 entitled “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.

A recent European Union agreement to crack down on the “wild west” in international crypto markets is “not a threat for the Luxembourg crypto market,” according to a senior official at international fund services firm Apex Group.

Representatives of the European Council and the EU parliament have reached a political agreement on the Markets in Crypto Assets proposal, known as MiCA, which covers issuers of unbacked crypto-assets, and so-called stablecoins, as well as the trading venues and the wallets where crypto-assets are held.