Welcome to the November 2019 edition of our monthly update from the Asset Management & Investment Funds team.

In this month’s edition we review the recent prohibition by the Central Bank of a director of a regulated firm for breaches of the Fitness & Probity Standards.  The notice, which prohibits the director from performing any controlled function of any regulated entity for a period of two years, was served to “demonstrate to and the financial system that the provision of false and misleading information to the Central Bank has real consequences”.  Notably, the Central Bank found the director to be in breach of the Fitness & Probity Standards for the duration of his approval as a director on the basis of information included in the individual questionnaire submitted by the director to the Central Bank.   

We also consider the impact on investment funds of the publication of the Central Bank’s AML/CFT Guidelines for the Financial Sector and in particular the emphasis in the Guidelines on effective training of all employees, directors and agents which should now include an assessment or examination and if not, firms should be in a position to demonstrate effectiveness of training and staff understanding.

Despite the latest delay to the UK’s exit from the EU, the outcome of Brexit is still uncertain and, in the words of the Central Bank’s Deputy Governor, “while we may be reaching the end of the beginning, a ‘hard Brexit is still sufficiently plausible to require planning”.  In this month’s update we consider the impact of Brexit, whether hard or soft, on funds’ use of UK benchmarks, as recently discussed in a paper published by the UK’s Financial Markets Law Committee.  And in particular, the possible consequences for LIBOR’s successor rate (if any) in light of the transitional provisions under the EU’s Benchmark Regulation. 

Contributed by: Nessa Joyce  

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