EUROPEAN UNION: ESMA Publishes Consultation Paper on Guidelines on Reporting Obligations under Article 3 and Article 24 of AIFMD

Friday May 24 2013

On 24 May 2013, ESMA published a Consultation Paper on ‘Guidelines on Reporting Obligations under Article 3 and Article 24 of AIFMD’. It will be of interest to asset management companies and trade associations of asset management companies managing funds falling in the scope of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, as well as investors in such funds.

The consultation paper (CP) contains in Annex III draft guidelines to NCAs on reporting obligations for AIFMs under Articles 3 and 24 of the AIFMD. These draft guidelines provide clarification on the information that AIFMs should report to national competent authorities (NCAs), the timing of such reporting together with the procedures to be followed when AIFMs move from one reporting obligation to another.

Annex IV of the CP includes the reporting template set out in Regulation 231/2013.

Annex V sets out a diagram which summarises the reporting obligations of AIFMs, as determined by the total value of assets under management and the nature of the AIFs managed or marketed.

Annex VI provides stakeholders with detailed IT guidance for XML filing. The CP is accompanied by the publication of the AIFM reporting XSD schema (ESMA/2013/599)1 that AIFMs will have to use to report the information under Articles 3 and 24 to NCAs. ESMA is also seeking feedback from stakeholders on these documents.

Annexes VII sets out:

– the typology of asset types that AIFMs should use to report the information to their NCAs;

– the codes of AIF strategies;

– the high frequency trading (HFT) NAV percentages;

– the position sizes;

– the codes of transaction types;

– the measures of risk;

– the investor redemption frequencies; and

– the investor groups.

ESMA invites comments on all matters in this paper and in particular on the specific questions summarised in Annex I. ESMA will consider all comments received by 01/07/2013. The feedback from the public consultation will help ESMA in finalising the guidelines on reporting obligations under Articles 3 and 24 of the AIFMD.

Please see the above link for more details.