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Regulatory Update: December 2021

Written by FactSet Insight | Dec 21, 2021

Each month, FactSet's Regulatory team offers a rundown of the most important developments in compliance and regulatory news. Read on to see which stories dominated the conversation last month.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)

European Union

Rest of World

World

  • BCBS finalized and published the revised “Market Risk Disclosure Requirements” including adjustments to reflect the revised market risk framework introduced in minimum capital requirements for market risk. The revised disclosure requirements come into effect on January 1, 2023.
  • The Financial Stability Bureau (FSB) published its 2021 List of Global Systemically Important Banks. The 30 banks on the list remain the same as the 2020 list.
  • Australian Parliament passed the “autonomous sanctions amendment” (Magnitsky-style Sanctions Law) that will allow Australia to expend its actual sanctions regime directly addressing an entity or individual for gross human rights violations, serious corruption, malicious cyber activity, etc.

European Union

  • The UCITS (Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) to PRIIPs (packaged retail and insurance-based investment products) transition period has been proposed to be delayed to December 31, 2022. meaning UCITS funds will have an additional six months before having to produce a PRIIPs key information document (KID).
  • The European Single Access Point (ESAP) proposal has been published as part of the Capital Market Union (CMU) package in November. The package of measures was adopted to ensure that investors have better access to company and trading data. The package includes four legislative proposals in total, as well as a communication explaining how the different measures fit together. The three other proposals are:
    • The Review of the European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIFs) Regulation to encourage long-term investment, including by retail investors
    • The Review of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) to harmonize the rules around loan-originating funds (debt funds) to facilitate lending to real economy
    • The Review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) to enhance transparency by introducing a “European consolidated tape” for easier access to trading data by all investors

United Kingdom

  • The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) consults on its discussion paper about new sustainability disclosure requirements for asset managers and FCA-regulated asset owners, as well as a new classification and labeling system for sustainable investment products. The consultation is open until January 7, 2022.
  • The FCA has delayed publishing the final PRIIPs KID rules from January 2022 to Q1 2022

United States

SEC Proposed Rules

In November, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published several proposed rules that broadly continue the SEC’s multi-year reporting modernization effort (broadening electronic filing and machine-readable formats) and increased transparency (expanding data to be reported centrally).

SEC Final Rules

In November, the SEC published two final rules: IA-5904, updating rule 205-3 to replace the specific dollar-amount thresholds for the net worth and assets-under-management tests; and 34-93596, the Universal Proxy rule, requiring the use of a universal proxy card in all non-exempt solicitations involving director election contests, except those involving registered investment companies and business development companies.

Marine Hutinel and Nels Ylitalo contributed to this article.

The information contained in this article is not investment advice. FactSet does not endorse or recommend any investments and assumes no liability for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any action or inaction taken based on the information contained in this article.