By Jude Scott, Cayman Finance – In August 1864, 900 miles almost due North of the Cayman Islands, US Navy Rear Admiral David Farragut faced a pivotal moment. Leading a squadron charged with attacking Confederate forces in Mobile Bay, Alabama, Farragut’s flotilla encountered tethered mines known then as “torpedoes” which ultimately threatened his mission and his men. Acting decisively to navigate around the threat and pursue his objective, Farragut uttered the phrase that has now passed into military lore: “Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!”

The Crypto Finance Group's brokerage subsidiary, Crypto Broker AG, has been granted a licence as a securities house with a bilateral trading facility by FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority.

As warnings intensify about the need for regulation of digital assets across the UK and Europe, Gibraltar is adding to its already regulated digital ledger technology (DLT) framework with the development of a ‘10th Core Principle’, specifically for digital asset exchanges. 

ITERAM Capital SA, an independent alternative investment company, has been authorised by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) as an authorised asset manager of collective investment schemes. 

Bequant, a global digital assets services firm, has been granted in-principle approvals by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) to operate both a prime brokerage and exchange.

By Leanne Golding and Kevin Huys (pictured) – 2020 was a year unlike any in recent memory. We experienced ongoing disruptions to daily life due to the Covid-19 pandemic, ongoing tension surrounding the US election and a number of severe weather events. In the Cayman Islands, 2020 was also a very eventful year for regulatory and legal changes in the alternative investment industry. For those of you who were understandably distracted by other things, here’s a recap of the most significant changes affecting alternative investment funds which occurred over the past year.

 A successful and long-established insurance recovery practice, led by policyholder advocate Robin Cohen, is launching its own law firm. 

The UK has implemented the G20 commitment to improve over-the-counter derivatives markets by onshoring the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) derivatives trading obligation (DTO) under the EU Withdrawal Act. The UK DTO applies to the same classes of derivatives as the EU DTO.

Moneybrain, one of only four FCA authorised firms in the UK trading cryptocurrency, has welcomed the news that the FCA will still enforce its January 2021 deadline on hundreds of firms and sole traders that make the industry a ‘wild west’.

All eyes will be on the European Commission’s legal proposal pertaining to the AIFM Directive, which is expected to be published sometime in the first half of 2021, and could usher in an updated version – AIFMD II – a decade after it was first adopted.