A key function of Undertakings for the Collective Funding in Transferable Securities (“UCITS” fund) is the Key Investor Info Doc (“KIID”), which offers the retail investor with simplified data from the prospectus.
UCITS additionally qualify as Packaged Retail Funding and Insurance coverage Merchandise (“PRIIPS”). Since PRIIPs are required to do a Key Info Doc (“KID”), promoters of a UCITS fund had been technically to offer each the KIID in addition to the KID. Thus, these conflicting necessities would have created uncertainty for the retail investor.
Initially, an exemption was supplied for funding corporations and administration corporations who’re selling a UCITS to proceed utilizing a KIID underneath the UCITS framework with out the necessity for doing a KID as required by the PRIIPS laws. The exemption was initially given till the thirty first of December 2021, but it surely was prolonged till the thirty first of December 2022.
In a round dated the twenty third of Could 2022, the MFSA offers ‘Amendments to the Funding Providers Rulebooks to Transpose and Implement EU Directives, Rules and EBA Pointers’. The fourth level of this round pertains to the transposition of ‘Directive (EU) 2021/2261 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 2021 amending Directive 2009/65/EC as regards the usage of key data paperwork by administration corporations of UCITS’.
The seventh Recital of EU Directive 2021/2261 states that: “It ought to subsequently be laid down that the KID is to be thought of to fulfill the necessities relevant to the important thing investor data.” Moreover, this recital provides that the funding corporations and administration corporations that are selling a UCITS fund “shouldn’t be required by competent authorities to offer the important thing investor data, and solely the KID must be supplied to these traders.” In accordance with Article 2 of the Directive, this can develop into efficient from the first of January 2023.
Moreover, the MFSA’s round offers Annex D, a doc containing the updates for Half BII of the Funding Providers Guidelines for Retail Collective Funding Schemes. This annex introduces three new Normal License Circumstances (“SLCs”). While SLC 6.2.25 offers that these amendments will begin making use of from the start of 2023, SLCs 6.2.23 and 6.2.24 present that retail traders of UCITS will be supplied with a KID underneath PRIIPS laws to suffice the KIID requirement underneath UCITS laws. However, non-retail traders of UCITS should nonetheless be given a KIID in line with the UCITS framework.
Thus, the MFSA’s round on this EU directive removes the necessity to proceed suspending the exemption which is scheduled to run out on the finish of 2022 and can present additional readability to retail traders prior to creating their respective funding choices. From a juridical perspective, these amendments consolidate the EU’s effort to guard retail traders via the PRIIPS framework by permitting PRIIPS laws to successfully supersede sure parts of UCITS laws regarding retail traders.