Created by the law of 27 August 2013, the Independent Audiovisual Authority of Luxembourg ("ALIA") is fully operational. In late October 2014, the Luxembourg government approved the composition of its consultative assembly, whose purpose is to submit non-binding opinions to ALIA's board of directors.
Asset segregation is one of the provisions of more relevance when it comes to depositaries under Directive 2011/61/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 8th 2011 on Alternative Investment Fund Managers (the "AIFMD") and it is aimed at improving investor protection.
On 21 October 2014, ESMA published an updated version of its Q&A on prospectuses.
En date du 8 octobre 2013, le Conseil d'Etat luxembourgeois rendait un premier avis sur le très attendu Projet de loi relatif à l'archivage électronique et modifiant la loi modifiée du 5 avril 1993 relative au secteur financier (ci-après, le « Projet de Loi »).
Suite aux propositions de modifications du Projet de Loi faites par la Commission de l'économie, le Conseil d'Etat a rendu, le 10 mars 2015, un avis complémentaire sur le Projet de Loi. Dans celui-ci, le Conseil d'Etat a levé trois des quatre oppositions formelles soulevées dans son premier avis.
The Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect (the "Stock Connect") is a securities trading and clearing program developed by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Shanghai Stock Exchange (the "SSE") and China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited (the "ChinaClear") with the aim to achieve mutual stock market access between mainland China and Hong Kong.
On 1 September 2014, a bill of law n°6713 was submitted to the Luxembourg Parliament (the "Bill"). The Bill aims to amend the Law of 12 February 1979 on the value added tax (the "VAT Law") and the Law of 17 December 2010 on excise duties applicable to certain categories of goods.
This flash focuses only on the VAT amendments proposed by the Bill, the aspect of excise duties on tobacco products being of less importance.
The Bill aims at promoting the new VAT-free zone regime at Luxembourg's Findel airport implemented by the Law of 28 July 2011 and developing the Luxembourg art market notably by extending the tax regime of the profit margin to organisers of sales by public auctions (see part 2) below) and by exempting certain goods and services from VAT (see part 3) below).
From 11 June 2013, any person or company alleging that its right to use a ".lu" domain name has been infringed may file a claim with DNS-LU (a service operated by Restena, the public service provider in charge of managing the country code toplevel domain). Once the claim is filed, any transfer of rights on
the domain name to a third party will be blocked, except if the rights are transferred to the claimant (if the underlying dispute concerning the domain name is resolved between the parties).
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The Law aims at modernizing, among others, the law of 10 August 1915 on commercial companies and the law of 1st August 2001 on the circulation of securities and other fungible financial instruments by allowing Luxembourg issuers to issue dematerialized securities.
1. THE NEW PLAYERS
Listed fungible securities must all be recorded in a single "issuer" account held by a clearing entity.
Unlisted fungible securities must all be recorded in a single "issuer" account held by a clearing entity or a central account holder ("teneur de compte central").
Only securities settlement systems whose operator is located in Luxembourg (Clearstream, for instance) will be entitled to act as clearing entities.
