By Tim Buckley (pictured) and Ed Pearson, Walkers – After spending much of the year in consultation with the industry, CIMA’s near-term regulatory approach is becoming clearer. In early December, CIMA released its Statement of Guidance for regulated mutual funds, which sets out the Authority’s minimum expectations for sound and prudent governance. Accompanying the guidance was a summary of feedback the authority had received from industry participants in the course of its consultation.   Overall, the guidance reinforces the themes that have emerged following the financial crisis: transparency, information exchange and good corporate governance. In addition, it reflects the principles

By Geoff Ruddick, IMS Fund Services – Independence – Independence is the ‘Holy Grail’ of effective corporate governance. If a director is not independent, conflicts of interest will inevitably arise and interfere with the director’s ability to act in the best interests of the fund. Experience – You will get a good idea of a director’s experience from their ‘bio’, which will appear in the offering document of the fund. Confirm they have experience serving on boards with similar strategies. Although independent directors do not need to be experts a general understanding of the fundamentals of the underlying strategy is

For UBS Fund Services, the AIFM Directive represents a significant opportunity to expand its business offering. As a global operation, it is well positioned to capitalise on the regulatory changes being introduced in Europe as compared to administrators without a European presence. In addition to offices in Dublin and Luxembourg, both of which are already working to support managers under the directive, UBS also has its own dedicated AIFMD working group whose sole focus is keeping on top of salient issues. “We see a lot of opportunities to help our existing non-EU managers, some of whom are looking to establish

By Colin MacKay – The 2007/8 global financial crisis continues to influence the environment within which the Cayman investment funds industry operates. Global economic patterns, largely driven by factors emerging from that crisis, continue to shape cross-border political and regulatory developments. These, in turn, impact the investment management, banking, prime brokerage, administration, accounting and legal communities, each of which continues to favour Cayman for investment fund structuring and operation. In geo-political terms, 2013 has seen a continued evolution of the thinking on what British Prime Minister Cameron dubbed the “3 Ts” of cross-border activity: taxation, transparency and trade. This evolution

By James Williams – December 2013 proved to be a busy period for the Cayman Islands in terms of the development of its regulatory framework. On 6 December 2013, after a period of consultation with industry practitioners, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) – the Islands’ financial regulator – released its Statement of Guidance for Regulated Mutual Funds (‘SoG-MF’).  In essence, the SoG-MF codifies and sets guidance on the minimum corporate governance standards required by operators of regulated mutual funds (directors, general partners) and gives the operators a clear understanding of their primary duties. For example, the operators must ensure