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UK independent directors: coming soon

The timetable for the FCA’s reforms for UK Authorised Fund Managers (ACMs) will be known in early April. The FCA will require AFMs to have a minimum of two independent directors with at least 25% of the board being independent.

On March 23 the FCA announced that its Board has now approved the final rules. It says that the resulting policy statement and changes will be published in its Handbook on April 5. The FCA adds that there will also be clarity of the timetable for the next stages.

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Ireland’s most impressive

NED researchers have shifted through 172 Irish domiciled alternative funds to find information on their directors. By comparison with the equivalent exercise in Guernsey and Jersey they were able to come up with the names of the directors of most Irish domiciled funds.

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CP 86 roundtable

The Irish fund industry has been preparing for CP 86 for a long time. It comes into full effect this summer. On March 7 The NED held a roundtable in Dublin to discuss its implications a number of those that are affected by this measure.

Attending the roundtable were: Stephanie Nolan, COO of GI Asset Management, Etain de Valera, a partner at Dillon Eustace, Declan Declan O’Sullivan, a partner with Dechert, Paul Nunan, Managing Director, Link Fund Solutions and two independent directors: Maurice Murphy and Raymond O’Neill.

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Guernsey board chairmen on director selection

In February The NED listed 23 Guernsey domiciled funds that have outstanding boards. The criteria used for selection is the same as has also been applied in this issue for Irish fund boards and, in January, for those domiciled in Jersey.

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Time to debate directors’ fiduciary duties

Carlyle Capital Corp’s (CCC) collapse led a lengthy legal battle, covered in The NED in 2017. Now Simon Mortimer QC, in a lengthy article in South Square Digest, argues that the case has sparked a much needed debate on directors’ common law fiduciary duties. In particular, where do directors’ duties lie in common law fund jurisdictions?

Simon Mortimer’s conclusion is that ‘The Carlyle case seems to be the first time that the court has been invited to adopt a rationality test when deciding whether directors had complied with their duty of loyalty.

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