On May 5 the Luxembourg Financial Supervisory Authority issued CSSF Circular 15/612, addressed to all managers of alternative funds subject to the 2013 legislation implementing the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, regarding reporting on unregulated alternative funds, whether established in Luxembourg, another EU member state or in a non-EU jurisdiction, as well as alternative funds regulated outside the EU.

The circular applies to registered alternative fund managers under Article 3 of the 2013 law, those with less than €100m in fund assets or €500m where there is a minimum lock-up of five years, as well as to managers that are fully authorised under the legislation, when they begin to manage any additional alternative fund or sub-fund – one that has not been previously reported to the regulator – that is unregulated, or regulated outside the EU. It does not concern funds run by Luxembourg managers in other member states, which are already covered by reporting requirements set out in Article 32 of the law.

The CSSF notes that the reporting requirements set out in Article 22 of the law for authorised managers, and in Article 5 of the Commission’s AIFMD Level II regulation of December 2012 for registered managers, do not necessarily guarantee the regulator a full and up to date picture of all the funds that they manage, especially in the case of unregulated funds that are not subject to prior authorisation and/or ongoing prudential supervision, as well as funds that are subject to the authority of a regulator in a country outside the EU.

This also matters because the CSSF is required to report at least quarterly to the European Securities and Markets Authority on all alternative funds run by Luxembourg managers as well as further information on the management and distribution of such funds to enable ESMA to keep its European fund registry updated.

In such cases the manager must complete for each such fund a form that can be downloaded from the regulator at http://www.cssf.lu/surveillance/vgi/gfia-aifm/formulaires/, form Ia for single-portfolio funds and Ib for umbrella funds, and send it to aifm@cssf.lu. In addition, managers must inform the CSSF by e-mail via the same address as and when they cease to manage any unregulated or non-EU regulated fund.

The required information should be submitted to the regulator within 10 working days of the manager beginning to manage the additional fund, which is signalled by the date of signature or of entry into force of the contract designation it as the manager of the fund, which may be before the fund has been launched. Likewise notification of the termination of a manager’s mandate for such a fund must be made within 10 working days.
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