The 2017 edition of our Arendt Financial Law Forum took place on 4 April. You can have a look at thefull programme here.

We have asked the moderators of our 4 panels to give us their insights and conclusions right after each session. You will find their reactions below:

Alain Goebel on Transfer pricing in a post BEPS world

We just finished a very interesting panel during the lastArendt Financial law Forum (AFLF) on the impacts of the BEPS project on transfer pricing and the panel has concluded that there are 3 quick wins for the audience:

• The first one being that it has to be reminded that transfer pricing applies to all controlled transactions in all industries.
• The second and this is a very important point, is that existing structures may have to be reviewed in respect of the allocation of risks and the substance that goes with it. Substance being control of these risks as well as capital adequacy.
• And last but not least, we also had a very important discussion on the trend that we see in Luxembourg and in the UK on transfer pricing agreements where the panel concluded unanimously that the trend is clearly to go towards advanced bilateral or advanced multilateral pricing agreements.

Claude Kremer on The ideal governance model in the fund world: myth or reality?

We have just had a very interesting debate on the fund governance during our lastArendt Financial Law Forum (AFLF). Is it a myth or a reality?

It was a passionate debate between the panellists. I think that as a general conclusion, we can say that it was a wake-up call to all those who thought that being a fund director is being a breakfast director that is not all the case.

Being a fund director is an important function, it is a duty, it is a fiduciary duty towards the investors and all the others stakeholders and we need to raise awareness that fund directors play a very significant role in the good governance of funds and that this is an important function.

François Warken on Market abuse: suspicious transactions and order reporting

We have just finished the panel dedicated to suspicious transactions and order reporting as per article 16 paragraph 2 of the market abuse regulations at the Arendt Financial Law Forum 2017.

This panel actually has shown that we managed to talk for nearly one hour about a single paragraph provision and presumably we could have continued our discussion for yet another hour.

This provision is also a good illustration of how financial regulation get increasingly more complex and it is also an illustration as to how to quest for harmonisation because automatically harmonisation was one of the drivers behind the market abuse regulations.

All this quest for harmonisation automatically is to a tightening of obligations and a shift towards a more tighter regulation.

Glenn Meyer on Recent developments in case law relating to financial law matters

We just finished the last session of today which is dedicated to financial case law matters and every year we have been doing this program since we started the Arendt Financial Law Forum nine years ago and we always do that at the end of the day because there are numbers of general counsels and legal practitioners that really enjoy staying until the end of the day because it is a little bit of a change during the day and we end it with some practical cases. We can comment them.

Case law is obviously something which is always very practical and is always really interesting also to recognize the trendsetter in the core ruling. This year, we were now very fortune because we have our friend Eric Stupp from Bär & Karrer. He is a partner in the financial service department in Zurich. And this year, we could confront Luxemburg case law rulings also from the angle of Swiss case law. And we can confront Luxembourg solutions to what the Swiss solutions will be. And because the Luxembourg banking sector is passionately inspired also by the swiss cousin if we may call it this way. I think it’s very interesting also for clients to look a little bit at what the swiss courts would say or have said in the past in the respect of some of this case law precedence that we presented today.

And to conclude, I would say certainly there are perhaps one or two cases that would probably catch the attention of a number of persons today. You have to shorten, to start do a limitation period very quickly because it can shelter you from future litigations quite efficiently and then watch out about the beneficial owners and the heirs of the beneficial owners because it seems that there are getting now access to more information than in the past. So, hopefully, next year’s edition will be able to share more information.

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