Today, April 14th 2023, the financial services commissioner Mairead McGuinness has published amendments on the interpretation of Regulation (EU) 2019/2088. These amendments seek to clarify how under the sustainable finance disclosures regulation (SFDR) investment products can be sold as "sustainable" to investors after asset managers downgraded many of their funds due to uncertainty over the rules.

To meet regulatory reporting requirements, companies need to convert their annual report to the ESEF/UKSEF format, tag the figures in the primary financial statements and block tag the notes. Upcoming legislation will likely bring additional tagging for ESG disclosures.

In the third blog of our ESG series, we examine how the SEC’s proposed changes impact private funds and the similarities between the SEC’s Proposed Amendments and other ESG regimes. 

In this second blog of the ESG series, we examine the proposed ESG-related disclosure and reporting requirements for investment advisers through amendments to Form ADV, Part 2A (“the Brochure”). The Proposed Amendments require investment advisers to disclose their ESG investing approach by strategy, relationships with related persons, and any ESG-related impacts on proxy voting. These proposed changes will likely apply to wrap fee funds too. 

As global regulators are intensifying their focus on “greenwashing”, the absence of standardization or a common disclosure framework frustrates investors and their managers. Across the industry, there is a well-recognised lack of consistent and comparable data which may lead to potential greenwashing and is making the regulators’ and managers’ jobs ever more challenging and burdensome regarding regulatory data management.

At Adminovate 2022 in Dublin on 26 of May, we listened to a detailed panel discussion titled “ESG and the Funds Industry”. What sparked my interest in the discussion was that the focus was not solely on the environmental element of ESG, but social and governance too.

The European Commission has delayed implementation of the second phase SFDR Level 2 disclosures until January 2023. This article examines what that means for AQMetrics clients and what has to be done by January 2023.

After an action packed July, where ESG, liquidity and new fund types took centre stage, August proved to be somewhat more muted, although there were still some important announcements.

Efama has called on EU supervisors to delay its SFDR reporting rules, citing what it says are an unrealistic deadline, inconsistent reporting standards and high costs of procuring and processing data.

FCA appointed its first ever Director of ESG this week, tapping Legal & General Investment Management’s (LGIM) Sacha Sadan for the new role.

By far the biggest regulatory change this year has been the SFDR regime, which went live on 10 March 2021.

This year’s Funds Congress was starkly different to that at the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster last year, just weeks before Covid-19 upended traditional events and networking.