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Home > PE News > By Region > Europe > Western Europe > United Kingdom

Gordon Brown intervenes to delay AIFM debate Gordon Brown intervenes to delay AIFM debate

17 Mar 2010. Source: AltAssets
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has intervened to delay the debate over proposed EU alternative investment regulations, according to reports. Brown called Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Monday ahead of an EU meeting, where the measures were to be discussed, to call for more time to discuss the rules.

Discussion of the directive had been expected to take place at an ECOFIN meeting of EU finance ministers, headed by Spanish minister for economic affairs Elena Salgado, but was removed from the agenda. It is now expected to be discussed at a G20 summit next month. The measures were still to be discussed at a session of European parliament.

The rules, which US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has slammed as “protectionist”, have the potential to hit the UK harder than any other EU country, as a third of Europe’s private equity firms are domiciled there. As they stand, the AIFM directives could block EU alternative fund managers from investing outside of the bloc, and prevent investors from outside the EU from making investments within it.

At a speech earlier this month, BVCA chairman Simon Myners warned against overzealous regulation, saying, “It is rather like someone popping pills for every conceivable illness 'just in case', including those that have not been diagnosed as a source of concern.  Regulatory hypochondria will serve no one well.”

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