The Legal 500

Seeking to improve the efficiency of its Competition authority, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg adopted last 23 October 2011 a new competition law.

Seeking to improve the efficiency of its Competition authority, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg adopted last 23 October 2011 a new competition law.

Asset Classes - Hedge; Real Estate; Private Equity; Venture; Mezzanine; Infrastructure

On 23 April 2012, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Federal Republic of Germany signed a new double tax treaty (the "New Treaty") which will replace the double tax treaty currently in force dated 23 August 1958. The New Treaty basically follows the provisions of the OECD Model Tax Convention, but certain specific provisions have been added.

Our April tax update highlights the latest important changes in Luxembourg tax law, including the enactment of the law relaxing the conditions to be met in order to benefit from the SPF tax status. Other topics include inter alia recent case law on the exemption of income deriving from the sale of preferential subscription rights and the first decisions of the Luxembourg administrative courts relating to the exchange of information upon request based on the law of 31 March 2010.

The European Commission’s proposals for level 2 implementation measures for the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive has been circulated to European Union member states and to the European Parliament. The Commission’s draft has prompted criticism from hedge fund managers quoted in media reports and from a hedge fund industry body, the Alternative Investment Management Association, that in certain areas its proposals differ significantly from those put forward by the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) in its advice delivered to the Commission on November 16.

Luxembourg’s legislation amending the February 2007 law on Specialised Investment Funds came into force on April 1, following publication in the country’s official gazette, the Mémorial, on March 30. It is now identified as the law of March 26, 2012, the date on which it received royal assent.

The European Securities and Markets Authority has published on January 30 a consultation paper proposing future guidelines for exchange-traded funds established as Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities and other issues related to the Ucits regime. The Esma proposals cover both physical ETFs, which replicate the performance of stock, bond, commodity, currency or other indices by holding shares or other securities in the proportions that make up the index in question, or a sample thereof, and synthetic ETFs, which use swap transactions to obtain the economic performance of the index, using a basket of securities as collateral.

The law of 26 March 2012 amending the law of 13 February 2007 relating to specialised investment funds (“SIFs”) was published today in the Mémorial A-063 and will enter into force on 1 April 2012. 

I. Law of 10 December 2010 relating to the introduction of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) II. Grand-Ducal Regulation of 14 December 2011 relating to the procedure for filing financial information electronically with the Luxembourg Trade and Companies Register

The European Securities and Markets Authority has published on February 23 a discussion paper on key concepts of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive and types of alternative fund manager to initiate a consultation process aimed at finalising its policy approach.