France Regulatory Calendar 2021

Adoption of the 2021 French Finances Bill (Loi de Finances)

The French Loi de Finances sets government spending and priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. For 2021, alongside an expansive economy recovery plan, the Bill enacts the creation of the “Relance” (recovery) label for investment funds located in France committed to investing in French SMEs and applying ESG criteria. These funds will benefit from state-guaranteed loans. The objective is to enable investors to identify funds that directly contribute to restoring the national economy in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Investments funds willing to get the Relance label have from October 19, 2020 to December 31, 2022 to make their application. 

2021

AIF + UCITS managers

Sustainable Finance

1. Entry into force of the majority of the Disclosure Regulation on transparency of financial markets activities
2. Entry into force of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers’ (AMF) position-recommendation 2020-03, requiring collective investment schemes to provide information on how they incorporate non-financial approaches in their commitment to ESG proportionate to the actual consideration of these factors in order to prevent “greenwashing”
3. Creation of a Sustainable Finance Observatory by the main French finance professional unions to gather data on the ESG commitment of affiliated companies. The data collected will be transparently disclosed. We consider that the data collection process will start by 2021.

1. March 10, 2021
2. March 10, 2021
3. 2021 

1. AIF + UCITS managers + investment firms
2. UCITS + retail AIF managers
3. AIF + UCITS managers

Required Update of the Program of Operations

The AMF updated its Instruction 2008-03 and now requires firms to update their program of operations according to new guidelines.

March 7, 2021

AIF + UCITS managers

New AMF Requirements for Liquidity Stress Testing

The AMF integrates ESMA’s requirements on liquidity stress testing in its regulation and therefore updates its position-recommendation 2020-08. Even though the AMF minimum requirement is once a year, the frequency recommended by the ESMA for stress testing is quarterly.

Q1 2021

UCTIS and AIFs

New AMF Requirements on Stress Tests Scenarios and Competent Authorities for Monetary Funds

The AMF updates its position-recommendation 2018-05 by adding ESMA’s requirements on stress tests scenarios under Article 28 of the MMF Regulation and on the reporting to competent authorities under Article 37 of the MMF Regulation. The minimum frequency for stress tests is every six months. The required frequency of reporting to the competent authority is quarterly.

Q1 2021

MMFs

FATF Evaluation

France will be subject to the OECD’s FATF evaluation on money laundering and terrorism financing. The French technical compliance scheme will firstly be assessed, and then an assessment will be carried out on the effectiveness of this scheme. The last assessment was made in 2011. A first plenary discussion is already planned for next year while the overall process of evaluation should last around one year.

June 2021

AIF and UCITS managers + investment firms

Transposition of EU 6th AML Directive into national law

Investment firms will have to prepare new controls and surveillance of transactions while keeping informed of the changes in national law. Moreover, investment firms can now rely on a harmonised list of 22 predicate offences that constitute money laundering.

June 3, 2021

AIF and UCITS managers

Brexit: equivalence between AMF examination and FCA requirements extended for two more years

The AMF Board has extended, until December 12, 2022, the mechanism granting equivalence with the AMF’s test of minimum knowledge to certain professionals with appropriate qualifications recognized by the British regulator.

Ongoing

AIF and UCITS managers

Article 51 of Benchmark Regulation

Benchmark index providers have until December 31, 2021 (end of the transitional provisions) to register according to Article 51 of the Regulation. After that date, and if an index has not been authorized, users will no longer be able to use it.

December 31, 2021

Benchmark index users

AIFMD review

The European Commission will review the AIFM Directive following a public consultation, which ended January 31, 2021. This will lead to a proposal of changes to the existing legislation likely to be published by mid-2021.

2021

AIF managers

EU Digital Finance Package and the Commission Proposal on MiCA

In order to promote digital finance in Europe, the European Commission is working towards a new Digital Finance Strategy for the EU for 2024. It adopted a Digital Finance Package and legislative proposals on crypto assets (Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets or MiCA) on September 24, 2020. This proposal will be discussed by the Parliament and Council. We can expect the legislative process to end before the end of 2021.

2021

Investment firms

MAR Review

The EU’s Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) is currently under review. A first public consultation occurred in 2019 and the ESMA published its review on September 2020. We can expect the European Commission to start its review of MAR in 2021.

2021

UCITS + AIF managers + investment firms

ESMA 2021 Program

The ESMA published its program for 2021. The main points are related to funds liquidity, the consideration of ESG risks, the review of AIFMD and MiFID II and the first Benchmark supervision mandates.

2021

UCITS + AIF managers + investment firm

SFTR Regulation

The last part of the regulation on transparency of securities financing transactions and of reuse (SFTR), concerning the reporting of transactions to trade repositories, entered into application progressively in 2020. The requirements for non-financial counterparties were supposed to be implemented on January 11, 2021 but has been extended for a further month.

Ongoing and February 14, 2021, for non-financial counterparties

UCITS + AIF managers + investment firm

EMIR Validation rules

The ESMA has postponed the applicability date of the updated EMIR validation rules from February 1, 2021 to March 8, 2021, due to technical issues given the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

March 8, 2021

UCITS + AIF managers

EMIR Refit

EMIR Refit introduces a requirement on clearing members and clients, providing indirect clearing, to provide clearing services on fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory and transparent commercial terms (FRANDT). EMIR Refit provides that trade repositories shall establish three types of policies and procedures: 1) procedures for the effective reconciliation of data between trade repositories; 2) procedures to verify the completeness and correctness of the data reported; and 3) policies for the orderly transfer of data to other trade repositories where requested by counterparties or CCPs. These requirements are the last of the requirements set by EMIR Refit and will enter into force in June 2021.

June 18, 2021

UCITS + AIF managers

Investment Firm Regulation and Directive (IFR/IFD)

The EU has adopted a new prudential regime for investment firms now adapted to the differences between assets’ sizes and firms’ activities. The second phase of the European Banking Authority’s planning starts in June 2021.

June 26, 2021

Investment firms

Inception Impact Assessment on European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIFs)

The European Commission published an inception impact assessment to review the functioning of ELTIFs. A first public consultation occurred in 2020. We can expect a first draft of regulation by Q3 2021.

Q3 2021

Long term investment fund managers

Regulation 2020/15/03 on European crowdfunding service providers

The European regulation on crowdfunding was published in October 2020 and creates a unique status for providers which must be registered under the national competent authority.

November 10, 2021

Crowdfunding service providers

Review of the PSD2

The first Payment Services Directive was adopted in 2007 then reviewed in 2015 (PSD2). PSD2 will be reviewed once again and adjusted in order to support the implementation of the retail payments strategy policies. A first public consultation was launched in Q1 2020.

Q4 2021

Third-party providers

CSDR Settlement Discipline Postponed

ESMA prepared a Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) to further postpone the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) settlement discipline to February 1, 2022. This RTS was supposed to be subject to the non-objection of the Parliament and the Council since July 2020. We can expect it to be accepted.

February 1, 2022

Central depositories