AIMA OPPOSING EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S PROPOSED HEDGE FUND DIRECTIVE

Posted May 26, 2009

LONDON – The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), a global hedge fund industry association, has announced plans to mobilize the world’s hedge fund industry in response to the European Commission’s draft directive for Alternative Investment Fund Managers.

“There are provisions in this directive with potentially serious consequences for managers, investors, service providers and advisers internationally,” says Andrew Baker, Chief Executive Officer of AIMA. “The feedback we’re getting from our members, who manage more than 75 percent of hedge fund industry assets globally, is that the draft directive has created enormous confusion. Because of the lack of proper consultation, the directive presumes a structure for the industry which bears little relationship to reality. Implementation in its current form could prove to be unworkable. It also appears to be in conflict with much of existing EC financial services legislation. We will therefore call for urgent effort to be devoted to re-drafting this directive. And we will seek to have excluded those provisions which are the most damaging and to prevent those who wish to make the directive even more punitive from prevailing.”