Category:Global Regulatory Development

1
United States: The SEC Finally Admits It, The No-Admit/No-Deny Policy Is Gone
2
Europe: Ireland’s Private Funds Regime Gets a Major Overhaul: Central Bank Publishes Revised AIF Rulebook
3
Europe: AIFMD II Transposition: Ireland Reaches a Key Milestone
4
United States: What a Relief! Sec Staff Extends Co-Investment Orders to Open-End Funds and Allows Delegation to Board Committee
5
United States: Form PFffft: SEC and CFTC Propose Rolling Back Reporting Burdens for Private Fund Managers
6
United States: New Sheriff, New Stats: Reading Between the Lines of the SEC’s Enforcement Report
7
United States: The Last Leg: SEC Extends Trading Relief to Share Class ETFs
8
United States: But Wait, There’s More–Names Rule FAQ
9
Europe: ESMA’s Draft RTS on Open-Ended Loan-Originating AIFs-AIFMD II in Practice
10
Europe: European Commission Delays “Non-Essential” Level 2 Measures Concerning AIFMD II and the UCITS Review

United States: The SEC Finally Admits It, The No-Admit/No-Deny Policy Is Gone

By: Thoreau Bartmann, Meghan Flinn, Ted Kornobis, Hayley Trahan-Liptak, and Neil Smith

On 18 May 2026, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rescinded the rule barring settling defendants from publicly denying the agency’s allegations. The policy, in place since 1972, effectively silenced settling defendants on pain of having their cases reopened. Now, defendants can publicly dispute SEC allegations, including under existing consent judgments.

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Europe: Ireland’s Private Funds Regime Gets a Major Overhaul: Central Bank Publishes Revised AIF Rulebook

By: Gayle Bowen and Shane Geraghty

The Central Bank of Ireland (the Central Bank) today published its long-awaited revised AIF Rulebook, consolidating and modernising the regulatory framework for Irish alternative investment funds (AIFs). The revised Rulebook introduces a number of important flexibilities that will be welcomed by industry and will provide greater flexibility to investment managers when structuring their investment funds to better meet investors’ needs.

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Europe: AIFMD II Transposition: Ireland Reaches a Key Milestone

By: Gayle Bowen and Shane Geraghty

Ireland has taken a significant step forward in the implementation of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive II (AIFMD II), with confirmation that the enabling Statutory Instruments have now been signed and are set to come into force.

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United States: What a Relief! Sec Staff Extends Co-Investment Orders to Open-End Funds and Allows Delegation to Board Committee

By: Jon-Luc Dupuy, Jennifer R. Gonzalez, Mark P. Goshko, Jordan A. Knight, Pablo J. Man, Keri E. Riemer, Tristen Rodgers, and George Zornada

On 27 April 2026, the staff (Staff) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a no-action letter that extends to open-end funds, subject to certain conditions, exemptive relief that permits business development companies (BDCs) and registered closed-end funds to co-invest alongside affiliates in transactions otherwise prohibited under Sections 17(d) and 57(a)(4) of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended. This relief opens the door for open-end funds to participate, subject to their 15% liquidity restrictions, in co-investment transactions that were previously unavailable to these funds.

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United States: Form PFffft: SEC and CFTC Propose Rolling Back Reporting Burdens for Private Fund Managers

By: Thoreau A. Bartmann, Richard W. Burnett, Ruth E. Delaney, Lance C. Dial, Pablo J. Man, and Sarah V. Riddell

On 20 April 2026, the SEC and CFTC jointly proposed yet another round of amendments to Form PF to eliminate filing obligations for many private fund advisers and reduce burdens for many of those who remain subject to the form.

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United States: New Sheriff, New Stats: Reading Between the Lines of the SEC’s Enforcement Report

By: Thoreau A. Bartmann, Meghan E. Flinn, Theodore L. Kornobis, and Neil T. Smith

On 7 April 2026, the SEC announced its fiscal year 2025 enforcement results, speaking not only to key actions from the past year but also to its vision for enforcement going forward. The results were the first from the commission under Chairman Atkins, and featured several notable elements:

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United States: But Wait, There’s More–Names Rule FAQ

By: Thoreau A. Bartmann and Christine Mikhael

On 19 February 2026, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published additional FAQs regarding Rule 35d-1 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (Names Rule). As you may recall, the SEC adopted the Names Rule amendments in September 2023, extended the compliance date in March 2025, and have published multiple rounds of FAQs. In tandem with these new FAQs, the SEC has delayed compliance with certain N-PORT amendments that related to the Names Rule. More information on the N-PORT amendments can be found in our Blog Post.

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Europe: ESMA’s Draft RTS on Open-Ended Loan-Originating AIFs-AIFMD II in Practice

By: Susanna Güven and Mathieu Volckrick

On 21 October 2025, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published its draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on open-ended loan-originating alternative investment funds (AIFs). This marks a key step in the implementation of Directive (EU) 2024/927 (AIFMD II), which updates the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) and Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) frameworks to strengthen rules on delegation, liquidity risk, supervisory reporting, depositary services, and loan origination.

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Europe: European Commission Delays “Non-Essential” Level 2 Measures Concerning AIFMD II and the UCITS Review

By: Gayle Bowen, Shane Geraghty, Mathieu Volckrick, and Dr. Philipp Riedl

In a letter dated 1 October 2025, the European Commission has announced that it will not adopt any non-essential Level 2 acts in respect of AIFMD II or the UCITS review, before 1 October 2027 at the earliest. The list of “non-essential” measures now postponed includes technical standards (i) for loan-originating funds to maintain open-ended features and (ii) on information exchange between national regulators and EU institutions.

It is further reported that the Commission has considered amending, or even repealing, certain acts via an Omnibus package dedicated towards Level 2 measures.

The European Securities and Markets Authority was due to deliver the final draft measures on open-ended loan-originating funds to the Commission this month following their earlier consultation on this topic. It is unclear whether this will now happen.

The Commission letter comes as EU Member States are preparing for AIFMD II implementation.

In Ireland, the Department of Finance issued a Feedback Statement exercising a number of discretionary provisions provided to Member States under the Level 1 Directive. The Central Bank has also commenced a consultation on a complete overhaul of the Irish private funds regime, proposing a copy-out approach to AIFMD and relaxing a number of its requirements, to align with other EU jurisdictions.

On 3 October, Luxembourg published its draft transposition legislation implementing the AIFMD/UCITS review into national law. According to an initial assessment, the Bill implements the provisions of the AIFMD review on a one-to-one basis, without gold plating and exercises several options provided to Member States under the Level 1 Directive.

Germany published its draft legislation implementing AIFMD/UCITS review on 9 July and has also adopted a copy out approach without any gold plating.

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