The Seminars can be customized to meet specific needs

The seminar has been designed to provide with the knowledge and skills needed to understand the European Union’s Directives and Regulations that give opportunities for arbitrage and competitive advantage to banks,  hedge funds and financial organizations of the Offshore Financial Centers

This course is intended for senior executives from Banks, Financial Organizations, Hedge Funds, Financial Supervisors and Regulators of the Offshore Financial Centers 

This course is highly recommended for all managers and professionals from the Offshore Financial Centers, who provide financial services to clients from the 30 countries of the European Economic Area

3 Days, 09:00 to 17:00.

• Introduction
• Understanding the directives and the regulations of the European Union that affect the Offshore Financial Centers
• The European Union’s Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP)
• The most Important Directives
• The Lamfalussy process
• What is new, what is different for banks and financial organizations outside the European Economic Area

• Extraterritorial Application of EU directives and regulations
• The European Savings Tax Directive (that harmed the UK Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories and helped their competitors, OFCs outside of the influence of the European Union) – lessons learned
• From the Savings Tax Directive to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), the 8^th Company Law Directive (European Sarbanes Oxley) and other directives

• The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID)
• From the Investment Services Directive (ISD) to MiFID: What is different now
• From the “know your customer” requirements to the new client classification, suitability and appropriateness
• Conduct of Business (COB) obligations
• The Regulation for National Market System (Reg NMS) in the United States and the MiFID in EU – a flat world?
• MiFID and options, futures, swaps, forward rate agreements, and other derivative contracts
• Extraterritorial Application of MiFID
• Challenges and opportunities for countries outside the European Economic Area
• MiFID and investment products authorized under different regimes 
• Hedge Funds in the European Economic Area (EEA) after MiFID
• New challenges for Hedge Fund managers
• MiFID and competitive advantage - Recommendations for banks and financial organizations of the Offshore Financial Centers

• The 8^th Company Law Directive
• The European Union’s Sarbanes-Oxley Act (E-SOX)
• Non-European companies listed in any country of the EEA have to comply with the 8th company law directive
• Which are the extremely important extraterritorial consequences
• How and why several Offshore Financial Centers enact legislation to prove that they have an “equivalent level of regulation”
• Auditors that audit offshore companies with EU listings
• The Offshore Financial Centers and the importance of Articles 45 and 46
• The role of the board of directors and executive management
• From the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to the European Group of Auditors’ Oversight Bodies (EGAOB)
• Similarities and differences with the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act
• The Market Abuse Directive
• The Transparency Directive

• Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directive (UCITS III)
• UCITS III and funds sold across the EU member states
• Funds designed for pan-European distribution to retail investors
• A passport to operate and market freely within the EEA that is easier to obtain (and cheaper)
• Establishing a fund in one EEA member state like Ireland or Luxembourg
• Permitted Activities of Management Companies
• EU Passport for Management Companies
• Tax implications of UCITS III
• Expanded permissible asset classes and broader scope of investment possibilities
• Although not directly applicable outside the EEA, jurisdictions (like Switzerland and Hong Kong) recognize UCITS – the reasons
• Funds of Funds
• Opportunities and Challenges

• The Capital Requirements Directive
• Basel ii will be implementation in the European Economic Area via the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) – differences from what is happening at the Offshore Financial Centers
• The freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services in the EEA
• Relations with third countries
• Powers of the authorities of the home and host Member State
• Hedge Funds, Alternative investments and the CRD
• Structured products, Securitization after Basel II and the CRD
• Traditional and Synthetic Securitisation
• Regulatory arbitrage
• The national discretions and the options in the EEA
• Countries and banks use Basel II and especially the Capital Requirements Directive as a competitive advantage

• The Financial Conglomerates Directive
• The “supplementary” supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms in a financial conglomerate
• The supervision of financial conglomerates and financial groups involved in cross-sectoral activities
• The “coordinating supervisor” or how to avoid a new BCCI
• Risk concentration
• Intra-group transactions
• Firms that are headquartered outside the EU, and are operating in EU markets
• The Joint Forum on Financial Conglomerates
• What is important for the Offshore Financial Centers
• Exchange of information with the EEA

• Tomorrow
• New directives and regulations – what is developing
• Indirect and direct regulation of Hedge Funds
• Know your customer – next step
• Solvency II is for insurance firms what the Basel ii and the Capital Requirements Directive is for banks
• Insurers holding capital according to new rules
• Replacing many existing Insurance Directives (like the Life, Non-life, Reinsurance, Insurance Groups and Winding-up Directives)
• The Internal market for financial services in the European Union: The banking, the securities and the insurance sectors in EU – what is next