Opportunities Arise Amidst The Regulatory Onslaught

The phrase "may you live in interesting times" is reputed to be an ancient Chinese curse. Unquestionably these are "interesting times" for the Channel Islands' funds industry with a raft of external pressures being applied to the islands' regulatory regimes in the form of US and European-led requirements. But in our case this need not necessarily be looked at as a curse. Those of us inclined to view our glasses as half-full may see opportunity amongst the changes.

For some time now the most pressing of concerns for the Islands' fund industry has been the Alternative Investment Fund Management Directive (AIFMD), a piece of European law-making intended to regulate the way investment funds offered to investors in the European Union are run. Much has been made of the need for the Islands to provide an "AIFMD-equivalent regime" whilst delays in producing the detail of what such a regime will need to be equivalent to have kept finance professionals waiting on tenterhooks.