News & Events

Funds Regulatory Partner Owen Lysak was quoted in a Capital Monitor article titled, “New Mifid rules risk damaging trust in ESG funds, experts fear.” The piece examined the proposed amendments to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (Mifid II) stemming from the new European rules on sustainable finance, which aim to give investors more say on their ESG preferences. The article described potential challenges the changes may cause, as well as the potential that the new requirements will formalize conversations between financial advisers and their clients on sustainability. Owen noted he is seeing a greater focus on what exactly fund managers say to investors about ESG issues. “People want to make sure there’s nothing that could come across as misleading, or cutting across an investor’s expectations or ESG requirements,” Owen explained. “In a way, the Mifid change doesn’t massively move the dial on that concern from a fund manager’s perspective. But it’s clearly another marker of the mis-selling risk surrounding the ESG credentials of managers at the moment.”

To read the full article, please click here.