Alternative Market Briefing

Similarities in Form PF and ESMA guidance may signal emergence of global finance regulatory framework

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York

In late October 2011, the SEC adopted Form PF, a form designed to provide systemic risk information to the new Financial Stability Oversight Council, formed through the Dodd-Frank bill. Just a few weeks later, in November, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published its final report containing technical advice to the European Commission on the implementation of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), a directive designed to deal with many of the same systemic risk issues that led to Form PF in the States.

I spoke with Jennifer Wood, Partner at UK-based law firm Dechert, about how the similarities that may be the start of a global regulatory framework for financial industries.

"Officials have been given the order to coordinate globally to create these directives," Wood says. "The SEC did actually see a copy of the pre-published ESMA guidance which is why the similarities between the two forms are so striking - some of the questions are actually identical."

Wood notes that global governments and regulatory bodies recognize that finance is globally interconnected and there is a necessity to create more uniform treatment across borders. Indeed officials in both bodies undertook extensive reviews of the practices of regulators around the globe into account when crafting these documents.

However, that doesn't mean that there aren't still significant differences and details that rem......................

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