Steven Maijoor, the chairman of Europe’s financial regulator, recently used a German funds industry event to quell fears that countries outside of the EU would not be able to perform certain activities for EU-domiciled funds, such as portfolio management, once Brexit had happened.
Maijoor, who chairs the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma), sparked these concerns about delegation last July, perhaps inadvertently, when an Esma paper said decision-making for individual cases of delegation might be taken away from national regulators and assumed by Esma itself after Brexit.
But Maijoor also told BVI members he’d been surprised that this proposal had been interpreted as a threat to the model of delegation. In other words, he had not meant to worry asset managers in the UK (who have ample portfolio management activities there) that they might have to move some services into the EU.
Given that some firms no doubt took expensive legal advice on the loss of delegation, there will be those who wish Maijoor had ended the uncertainty sooner.
Nick Fitzpatrick is group editor of Funds Europe
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