ESMA's Final ESG Fund Name Guidelines

The European Securities and Markets Authority ("ESMA") has published its Final Report on the Guidelines on funds' names using ESG or sustainability-related terms (the "Guidelines"). ESMA was provided with the mandates to develop guidelines on unclear, unfair or misleading fund names in the updated Alternative Investment Managers Directive¹ ("AIFMD") and UCITS Directive, which are now in force.

We cover here the funds that are intended to be in scope of the Guidelines, what the Guidelines entail and their proposed timing.

From the outset, we note that Member States must implement the Guidelines and there is the potential that the approach to such implementation may vary in terms of how embedded they are in regulatory regimes and how strictly they may be applied.