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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Greek Presidency reaches provisional agreement on UCITS

by  Karafillis Giannoulis

The Greek Presidency announced that it has reached a provisional agreement on UCITS with the European Parliament.

UCITS V Directive is about depositary functions, remuneration policies and sanctions. The President of the ECOFIN, and Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said about the agreement. “The agreement on the UCITS V Directive enhances investor confidence and protection by introducing additional safeguards as regards depositary functions, avoids excessive risk taking by establishing appropriate remuneration policies and harmonises at a European level administrative sanctions”

UCITS V introduces specific provisions on the depositary's safekeeping and oversight duties, and it sets out a list of entities that are eligible to act as UCITS depositaries. It also clarifies the role and liabilities of the depositary in the event of any loss of assets held in custody. Moreover, the directive establishes new rules on remuneration and discourage excessive risk- taking. Moreover, the European Commission said that the agreement reached on 25 February, strengthens the existing rules on sanctions to ensure effective cooperation between authorities and harmonises administrative sanctions in order to detect and deter breaches of UCITS provisions.

European Commissioner for Internal Market, Michel Barnier welcomed the provisional agreement and said. “This agreement on the so-called UCITS V will bring significant improvements to the protection of UCITS investors when it comes to the safe-keeping of UCITS assets by the depositary. It will ensure that the abuses seen at the time of the Madoff scandal cannot be repeated. We must always remember that the UCITS framework is widely viewed as a gold standard for fund regulation globally, and it is important to maintain this. I would like to congratulate all parties who have worked tirelessly on this important consumer protection file. I would like to thank in particular the European Parliament – especially the rapporteur, Sven Giegold, and the shadow rapporteurs; and the Greek Presidency as well as the preceding Lithuanian and Cypriot presidencies for their hard work and commitment. This is an important achievement and will benefit consumers throughout Europe.”


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.neurope.eu