At our recent interactive webinar, chair and partner Tara Doyle and senior associate Orlaith Finan from our Asset Management and Investment Funds Department took over 200 attendees through Annex II to the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation ("SFDR") regulatory technical standards ("RTS"), which sets out the template for pre-contractual disclosures for investment funds within the scope of Article 8 SFDR (that is, investment funds promoting environmental and social characteristics).
The final SFDR RTS were published in July this year and set out templates for disclosures relating to principal adverse impacts of investment decisions on sustainability factors and pre-contractual and periodic disclosures for funds within the scope of Article 8 and Article 9 of the SFDR. The pre-contractual disclosures are required to be annexed to all fund prospectuses / supplements from 1 January 2023 and the Central Bank of Ireland ("Central Bank") has recently confirmed that the necessary filings must be made with the Central Bank by 1 December 2022. (See our earlier update – Central Bank of Ireland Confirms SFDR Level 2 Fast Conditions – available here.)
The webinar discussion focused on the Article 8 fund pre-contractual disclosures, as the vast majority of funds filing before the 1 December 2022 deadline will be Article 8 funds. Tara and Orlaith highlighted the key issues and queries we have seen with respect to each section of the template and offered practical guidance on completion, as well as responding to attendees' questions on the day.
If you would like to be invited to future Matheson webinars, you can subscribe to our various mailing lists here. If you would like to access a recording of the above webinar, please contact knowledge.insights@matheson.com.
To read more about these developments, please visit our Sustainable Finance page.
Please contact your usual Asset Management and Investment Funds contact should you wish to discuss the SFDR RTS requirements.