Home / DIRECTIVE 2011/61/EU / ENACTING TERMS / Paragraphs 05 - 11

Paragraphs 05 - 11

(5) 4 years after the deadline for transposition of this Directive, the Commission should review the application and the scope of this Directive taking into account its objectives and should assess whether or not the Union harmonised approach has caused any ongoing major market disruption and whether or not this Directive functions effectively in light of the principles of the internal market and of a level playing field.

(6) The scope of this Directive should be limited to entities managing AIFs as a regular business – regardless of whether the AIF is of an open-ended or a closed-ended type, whatever the legal form of the AIF, and whether or not the AIF is listed – which raise capital from a number of investors with a view to investing that capital for the benefit of those investors in accordance with a defined investment policy.

(7) Investment undertakings, such as family office vehicles which invest the private wealth of investors without raising external capital, should not be considered to be AIFs in accordance with this Directive. 

(8) The entities not considered to be AIFMs pursuant to this Directive fall outside its scope. As a consequence, this Directive should not apply to holding companies as defined herein. However, managers of private equity funds or AIFMs managing AIFs whose shares are admitted to trading on a regulated market should not be excluded from its scope. Further, this Directive should not apply to the management of pension funds; employee participation or savings schemes; supranational institutions; national central banks; national, regional and local governments and bodies or institutions which manage funds supporting social security and pension systems; securitisation special purpose entities; or insurance contracts and joint ventures.

(9) Investment firms authorised under Directive 2004/39/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on markets in financial instruments ( 1 ) and credit institutions authorised under Directive 2006/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2006 relating to the taking up and pursuit of the business of credit institutions ( 2 ) should not be required to obtain an authorisation under this Directive in order to provide investment services such as individual portfolio management in respect of AIFs. However, investment firms should be able, directly or indirectly, to offer units or shares of an AIF to, or place such units or shares with, investors in the Union only to the extent that the units or shares can be marketed in accordance with this Directive. When transposing this Directive into national law, the Member States should take into account the regulatory purpose of that requirement and should ensure that investment firms established in a third country that, pursuant to the relevant national law, can provide investment services in respect of AIFs also fall within the scope of that requirement. The provision of investment services by those entities in respect of AIFs should never amount to a de facto circumvention of this Directive by means of turning the AIFM into a letter-box entity, irrespective of whether the AIFM is established in the Union or in a third country.

(10) This Directive does not regulate AIFs. AIFs should therefore be able to continue to be regulated and supervised at national level. It would be disproportionate to regulate the structure or composition of the portfolios of AIFs managed by AIFMs at Union level and it would be difficult to provide for such extensive harmonisation due to the very diverse types of AIFs managed by AIFMs. This Directive therefore does not prevent Member States from adopting or from continuing to apply national requirements in respect of AIFs established in their territory. The fact that a Member State may impose requirements additional to those applicable in other Member States on AIFs established in its territory should not prevent the exercise of rights of AIFMs authorised in accordance with this Directive in other Member States to market to professional investors in the Union certain AIFs established outside the Member State imposing additional requirements and which are therefore not subject to and do not need to comply with those additional requirements.

(11) Several provisions of this Directive require AIFMs to ensure compliance with requirements for which, in some fund structures, AIFMs are not responsible. An example of such fund structures is where the responsibility for appointing the depositary rests with the AIF or another entity acting on behalf of the AIF. In such cases, the AIFM has no ultimate control over whether a depositary is in fact appointed unless the AIF is internally managed. Since this Directive does not regulate AIFs, it cannot require an AIF to appoint a depositary. In cases of failure of an AIFM to ensure compliance with the applicable requirements of an AIF or another entity on its behalf, the competent authorities should require the AIFM to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation. If, despite such steps, the non-compliance persists, and in so far as it concerns an EU AIFM or an authorised non- EU AIFM managing an EU AIF, the AIFM should resign as manager of that AIF. If the AIFM fails to resign, the competent authorities of its home Member State should require such resignation and the marketing in the Union of the AIF concerned should no longer be permitted. The same prohibition should apply to authorised non-EU AIFMs marketing non-EU AIFs in the Union.

(1) OJ L 145, 30.4.2004, p. 1.

(2) OJ L 177, 30.6.2006, p. 1.