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Article by Sibtain Sajan, Funds-Axis Limited Friday 29th January 2010	Europe Focus: UCITS IV
http://www.cesr.eu/popup2.php?id=64...

This review is pursuant to a stock-take conducted during the course of 2008, which looked into the degree of application of 13 CESR guidelines for the notification of UCITS by the 27 Member States. The results reflect the situation as at 1st April 2008 and as such its value is much diminished as many Member States will have progressed since then.
The report provides evidence of the level of application of the CESR guidelines on notification procedures for UCITS in the CESR Membership. Out of the 13 CESR guidelines for UCITS notification, seven had been identified as key guidelines according to the CESR self-assessment published on the CESR website, namely:

• The notification letter (Guideline 1),
• Possible grounds to refuse notification (Guideline 2),
• The starting of the two-month notification period (Guideline 4),
• The maximum two-months period to check information (Guideline 5),
• The requirement to submit the latest version of the notification documents and certification of them (Guideline 7),
• Marketing of only part of an umbrella fund and the single notification letter for several sub-funds and cross-reference (Guideline 10)
 

Only 5 Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, Luxembourg and Norway) were found to be meeting the benchmark standard of applying at least the key guidelines.
 

Members were considered as partially-applying the guidelines when, according to the benchmark, any of the key guidelines was partially applied. This was the case for four further CESR Members – Hungary, Portugal, Romania and Sweden.
 

Countries were considered as being ‘non-applicants of the guidelines’ when any of the key guidelines were not fully complied with. This was the case for the 20 remaining CESR Members (including the UK and Ireland).
CESR acknowledges the fact that the situation in other member states is likely to have changed to a higher degree of compliance since the cut off date in April 2008, with the guidelines in the jurisdictions of some CESR Members which formally adopted national implementation measures – but, because of the cut-off date, the assessment of these measures was not part of this peer review.
 

Carlos Tavares, Vice-Chair of CESR and Chair of the Portuguese Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários (CMMV), Chair of the Review Panel that conducted the survey, stated:
 

"Today’s publication shows the importance of creating peer pressure amongst CESR Members in order to achieve greater convergence. The Review Panel will continue to maintain pressure for supervisory convergence and notes that with the implementation of the UCITS IV Directive and following Level 2 legislation, remaining uneven levels, for instance with regard to electronic filing, will be resolved."

The UCITS IV Directive integrates some of the simplifications to the notification procedure envisaged by CESR in the Guidelines. This includes regarding the electronic filing of the notification document and the language regime of the notification letter and of the attestation of the home competent authority. Moreover, the European Commission may adopt implementing measures in other areas which are partly covered by the CESR guidelines.