In March 2011 the Central Bank of Ireland(the “Central Bank”) confirmed that managers/administrators could,subject to appropriate controls and procedures being in place, dispensewith the Central Bank’s requirement to obtain original application formsfrom investors of non-Irish domiciled funds where subscription andredemption orders are received by facsimile or other electronic means.In July, the Central Bank extended this confirmation to Irish domiciledfunds, however, due to an administrative error, we have only recentlyreceived confirmation of this.

Following an industry request, the Central Bank has also agreed toallow a derogation for both Irish and non-Irish domiciled funds from therequirement to obtain original documentation instructing amendments toan investor’s registration details and payment instructions.

In applying the derogations from the requirements to obtain originalapplications/documentation, managers/administrators must be satisfiedthat there are appropriate controls and procedures in place to complywith the applicable anti money laundering legislation and to mitigatethe risk of fraud associated with the processing of transactions basedon fax or other electronic instructions. Where the manager/administratordoes not require original documentation this procedure must be formallydocumented and approved by the board of the relevant fund company or,in the case of a unit trust/ common contractual fund, by its manager.

This follows the implementation by Revenue of the non-residentdeclaration “equivalent measures”, removing the necessity to obtainoriginal applications for Revenue purposes. These welcome developmentsoffer additional flexibility for funds and their administrators in thecontext of processing subscription and redemption requests.

For further information, please contact our Partners listed or yourusual contact in our Asset Management and Investment Funds Team.