McDermott is nominated in the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards in Europe
We are very pleased to announce that our firm has been nominated in the categories Innovation in Digital Solutions and Innovative Lawyers in Impact and ESG in the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards Europe.
The German legal tech team, led by Dr Thomas Hauss, was nominated for the Check of Regulatory Authorizations (CORA) tool in the Innovation in Digital Solutions category. The tool supports users in navigating the highly complex landscape of German and European financial supervisory law.
Learn more about CORA here.
Click here for the shortlist.
Our CORA team: Dr. Thomas [...]
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McDermott Funds Academy: GP-led secondaries and the launch of continuation funds
The McDermott Funds Academy online seminar took place on 6 July. We spoke with our experts Dr. Kian Tauser, Frank Müller and Tobias Koch about GP-led secondaries and the launch of continuation funds.
The online seminar was aimed at employees of fund initiators and sponsors, institutional investors, asset managers, capital management companies, custodians, banks and others with a connection to investment funds and their transactions.
Click here to view the full [...]
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United Kingdom’s digital pound meets public backlash – Why?
It’s not only the EU with its plans for a digital Euro that’s addressing the matter of Central Bank Digital Currency (“CBDC“). The UK has also unveiled an ambitious roadmap for the introduction of a ‘Britcoin’ by 2030. In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Annabelle Rau sheds light on the impacts of CBDCs on privacy, financial inclusion, and the risks of bank runs.
Follow this link to the full version of the article on [...]
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ESG, home office and real estate transactions – BaFin publishes 7th MaRisk amendment
The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (“BaFin“) published the seventh amendment to the Minimum Requirements for Risk Management of Banks (“MaRisk“) on June 29, 2023.
The MaRisk codify BaFin’s administrative practice on risk management for German banks, in particular with respect to business organization and outsourcing, and in doing so substantiates the statutory requirements of Section 25a of the German Banking Act (“KWG“).
The amendments range from requirements of the European Banking Authority (“EBA“) for lending and monitoring to exceptions for securities trading in the home office and the managing of ESG and real estate risks.
- Loans: [...]
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European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) put forward common understanding of greenwashing and warn on risks
The European Supervisory Authorities published their Progress Reports on Greenwashing on June 1st. The reports includes a common high-level understanding of Greenwashing and thus helps to provide market participants and regulators with a shared reference point in dealing with this phenomenon.
In the report, ESMA assesses which areas of the sustainable investment value chain (SIVC) are more exposed to the risk of greenwashing. This assessment is meant to help market participants in preventing and mitigating greenwashing, and to support ESMA and NCAs in prioritising supervisory actions and regulatory intervention. The findings show that misleading claims may relate to all key [...]
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Stability through regulation
The financial industry is once again facing uncertainty and turbulence, caused in particular by the demise of some banks and problems in the crypto scene. In view of the current regulatory density, the question arises whether this is sufficient to ensure the stability of the financial industry and whether it can actually help to create market security and trust. Renate Prinz classifies the current developments in the Börsen-Zeitung.
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ESG query obligation will also apply to German investment intermediaries (Finanzanlagenvermittler)
ESG is also coming to German investment intermediaries!
On November 11, 2022, the German Federal Ministry of Economics presented a draft bill for a Regulation Amending the Trade Notification Regulation and the Financial Investment Intermediaries Regulation. As a result of the amendment, German investment intermediaries licensed under Section 34f of the German Trade Regulation Act (Gewerbeordnung – „GewO“) will have to ask their customers about their sustainability preferences in the context of investment advice and take these into account in a suitability test.
Alignment of the ESG query obligation with the European regulatory standard
Since [...]
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Amendment of the Owner Control Regulation
On December 28, 2022, the amended “Regulation on Notifications in Accordance with Section 2c of the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz – KWG) and Section 104 of the German Insurance Supervision Act (Versicherungsaufsichtsgesetz – VAG)”, the Owner Control Regulation (Inhaberkontrollverordnung – InhKontrollV, also referred to as Holder Control Regulation by BaFin), became effective. The amendment expands the scope of the documents and declarations to be submitted, but at the same time contains partial relief for the party subject to the notification requirement.
Consideration of the changes to the KWG and the VAG
The amendments to the InhKontrollV take into account the [...]
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The year is drawing to a close – what’s new for 2023?
As the year draws to a close, it is worth taking a look at new regulations at the start of the year: As of January 1, the new Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on the EU Disclosure Regulation will apply to financial market participants and financial advisors. With the Disclosure Regulation, which already came into force in March 2021, respective companies must prove how sustainable their products are, the extent to which ESG criteria, i.e. ecological and social standards and good corporate governance, are observed and pursued and which strategies are applied here.
The Disclosure and Taxonomy Regulation applies to financial [...]
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BaFin considers dark patterns in trading apps and trading portals to be unlawful
On November 21, 2022, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – “BaFin“) clarified in a statement that investment firms are not allowed to use dark patterns in trading apps or trading portals. Against this background, BaFin also published two new FAQs on the conduct of business rules for investment firms.
In BaFin’s opinion, dark patterns in digital decision worlds (“choice architecture“) violate the ban of misleading information and the principle of fairness and are therefore unlawful.
What are dark patterns?Dark patterns are when individual buttons in apps or on websites have a significantly lower [...]
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