The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has today published its final guidelines on repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements for UCITS funds.  The guidelines state that UCITS should only enter into such agreements if they are able to recall at any time any assets or the full amount of cash.

  Executive Summary Reasons for publication On 23 February 2012, ESMA published a discussion paper (DP) on key concepts of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive and types of AIFM (2012/117), which was followed on 19 December 2012 by the publication of a consultation paper (CP) on guidelines on key concepts of the AIFMD (2012/845). The CP set out formal proposals for guidelines ensuring common, uniform and consistent application of the concepts in the definition of ‘AIF’ in Article 4(1)(a) of the AIFMD by providing clarification on each of these concepts. This final report sets out the final text of the guidelines on key concepts of the AIFMD.

Article 7(5) of MAR provides that the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) shall issue guidelines to establish a non-exhaustive indicative list of information which is reasonably expected or is required to be disclosed in accordance with legal or regulatory provisions in Union or national law, market rules, contract, practice or custom, on the relevant commodity derivatives markets or spot markets as referred to in Article 7(1)(b) of MAR. This final report follows the Consultation Paper (CP) issued on March 2016.

Contents

Section 2 contains information on the background and mandate, while Section 3 sets out ESMA’s feedback to the CP responses in relation to the scope of the guidelines, the financial instruments and products covered by the examples of information relating directly and indirectly to commodity derivatives and information directly relating to a spot market contract. It also indicates whether and where ESMA has changed the guidelines following the consultation.

Annex I lists questions raised in the CP. Annex 2 provides the legislative mandate on the basis of which ESMA is issuing these guidelines. Annex 3 sets out ESMA’s view on the costs and benefits associated with these guidelines. Annex 4 contains the text of the guidelines.

Next steps

The guidelines in Annex 4 will be translated into the official languages of the European Union and published on the ESMA’s website. Within 2 months of the issuance of the translations, each national competent authority will have to confirm whether it complies or intends to comply with those guidelines. In the event that a national competent authority does not comply or does not intend to comply, it will have to inform ESMA, stating its reasons. ESMA will publish the fact that a national competent authority does not comply or does not intend to comply with those guidelines.

Corrigendum - date on the letter of assurance from the Executive Director on p81 had inadvertently been dated 14 June 2017, when the letter was signed on 2 June 2017. The date has been amended accordingly