I had the pleasure of listening to Prof Barry Rider OBE at the 30th ICC Fraudnet Conference in Beirut on 11th October 2019 which specifically addressed asset recovery, confiscation and anti-fraud measures in the banking system.
In its decision of the 27th September 2019 in the names Marina Milling & Grain Handling Co. Limited (MMGH Ltd.) v. Euro Imports Limited, the Court of Appeal decided for the first time, that an order by the First Hall, Civil Court, ordering a company to be liquidated and subsequently wound up in terms of Article 214(2) of the Companies Act, is not subject to appeal .
In September 2019, the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”), in fulfilment of the European Systemic Risk Board recommendations to address liquidity and leverage risk in investment funds, published its final guidelines on liquidity stress testing (“LST”) in undertakings for the collective investment in transferable securities (“UCITS”) and alternative investment funds (“AIFs”)(the “Guidelines”).
On 10 June 2019 the amended European Shareholder Rights Directive II (the “Directive”) came into force. This Directive includes transparency obligations which aim to encourage long-term shareholder engagement and impacts institutional investors (pension funds and insurers) and asset managers (MiFID firms providing portfolio management services, AIFMs - except for de minimis AIFMs, UCITS ManCos and self-managed UCITS) to the extent that they invests in shares traded on a regulated market on behalf of investors (shares that have a primary or secondary listing on a EEA market) whether on a discretionary client-by-client basis or through a collective investment scheme.
In line with the increasingly tough stance taken to “jumping the gun” in merger proceedings by other competition authorities, the UK Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) recently imposed a penalty on PayPal for failing to comply with an Initial Enforcement Order (IEO) issued by it pending its investigation into the US payments giant’s acquisition of iZettle, a Swedish financial technology company.
On 20 September 2019, the Malta Financial Services Authority (the “MFSA”) issued a circular on the go live of MiFID II XML Schema version 1.1.0, aiming to provide further information and technical remarks about the go live of the new portal.