AIFMD: A Brief Synopsis

How will the implementation of the European Union's AIFMD impact on Ireland's investment funds industry, ask Adam Donoghue and Ann-Marie Teehan.

The global financial crisis of 2008, most notably the Lehman and Madoff affairs, highlighted certain gaps in the regulatory framework of the alternative investment fund industry and led to many questions regarding the due care and diligence that fund managers were exercising on behalf of their investors. Thus, work began on both sides of the Atlantic on putting a comprehensive and harmonised regulatory structure in place. In the EU the result is AIFMD (Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive), which was due to be implemented across all member states by last July, but which in many cases allowed a 12-month 'grandfathering' period and is only now clearly coming into focus.