“We welcome the work of the Swedish Presidency in producing the compromise text. There have been significant concerns expressed about the original text of the Directive by Member States, by other stakeholders such as pension funds and the affected industries, and in a number of independent studies including one commissioned by the European Parliament, and we appreciate the time and effort the Swedish Presidency has spent listening to these concerns.

“AIMA, as the global hedge fund trade body, has consistently expressed its support for the G20 process in relation to the regulation of hedge fund managers, and we have supported those parts of the Directive which go along this path and which increase transparency, such as the registration and supervision of hedge fund managers and the reporting by those managers of systemically relevant data to the authorities in the interests of financial stability and for globally accepted standards.

“Our concern with the Directive relates to those parts of it which in our view deviated from the G20 path, such as those parts which created protectionist outcomes or established excessively prescriptive and unnecessary regulations which add nothing to either the protection of European investors or the promotion of EU financial services competitiveness. In addition there were major question marks about the whole scope of the Directive, the ‘one size fits all’ approach, given that it covered a wide variety of extremely diverse collective investment schemes.

“We are hopeful that the text produced by the Swedish Presidency will establish a consensus for the way forward and we look forward to working with the Presidency, with the parliamentarians and committees of the European Parliament, with Member States, with the Commission and with other stakeholders, in order to achieve a sustainable and workable outcome.

“We will now examine the long and detailed new text and respond as appropriate.”

Florence Lombard, Executive Director, AIMA