The eagerly anticipated Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicles Act 2015 (the “ICAV Act”) was signed into law in March 2015 and the first Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicles (“ICAVs”) have been authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland (the “Central Bank”).

The ICAV is a new Irish corporate vehicle designed specifically to be constituted as an investment fund, either as a UCITS or an AlF.

Background to the Introduction of ICAVs –

The funds industry in Ireland has always sought to be innovative in terms of the availability of fund structures.

The longest established fund structure has been the unit trust; however, when the Irish funds industry was established in the late 1980's, a key innovation was the introduction of the variable capital investment company ("VCC"), structured as a public limited company ("PLC").

The investment limited partnership was subsequently introduced in 1994, followed by the common contractual fund in 2003.

Since the introduction of the VCC, the underpinning legislation has been updated on a number of occasions, principally to disapply some of the more onerous company law provisions that apply to PLCs whose shares are publicly traded. The most notable change was the introduction of segregated liability between sub-funds of PLCs in 2005.