Guidelines on the Use of Stress Tests by French Management Companies

The Association Française de la Gestion financière (the AFG), the French association of management companies, published on 7 May 2015 guidelines on the implementation of regulatory stress tests for UCITS funds using the Value at Risk (VaR) and AIFs. Pursuant to these guidelines, several principles are to be applied by French managers when conducting stress tests, including, among others, the application of the proportionality principle to stress tests or the requirement to disclose the results of such stress tests.

Read the full guidelines (French)

Autorité des Marchés Financiers’ Annual Report

The Autorité des Marchés Financiers (the AMF, the French Financial Markets Authority) published on 5 May 2015 its 2014 annual report. In addition to the presentation of the AMF activity in 2014, the annual report highlights the requirements for marketing documents to be clear, exact and non-misleading, in order to protect the investors and the general public. The annual report also provides several statistics (i.e., number of management companies and funds existing in France, total AuM, passports requests…).

Read the 2014 annual report (French)

AMF Report on ne bis in idem Principle Under Financial Law

Until recently (see Dechert update, Issue 3, 2015), France had a double-trial system for market abuse, under which someone could be sanction on both a criminal and administrative level. Pursuant to the dismissal of this system by the French Conseil Constitutionnel, the AMF published on 19 May 2015 a report on the “ne bis in idem” principle within the framework of market abuse regulations. In this Report, the AMF makes several proposals in order to reform the existing system. Among others, the AMF proposes that (i) only the most serious cases of market abuse should be subject to criminal proceedings, (ii) the amounts of the criminal and administrative fines should be harmonized or (iii) a procedure of plea bargaining should be introduced in the French market abuse regulations. Those proposals are the first that were published in view of the market abuse reform which will be revised before 1 September 2016.

Read the full report (French)