Article by Jyrki Tähtinen and Paulus Hidén
Regulatory Framework
Primarily there are two Finnish acts that are of relevance when marketing private equity funds to Finnish investors. The Finnish Securities Markets Act (SMA) regulates, among other things, offerings of securities. The SMA contains three different provisions on offerings, one on the obligation to draft a prospectus and two of a more general nature. The scopes of application of these provisions are not identical. Furthermore, the general scope of application of the SMA could mean that the SMA is not necessarily applicable to a specific offering of securities.
The Mutual Funds Act (MFA) regulates issues relating to common funds as well as the marketing of collective investment undertakings (UCITS). The question here is whether or not a foreign private equity fund could be considered as a UCITS and be subject to the marketing provisions of the MFA.
