Insights

The Cayman Islands government has published a Mutual Funds (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (the Bill) which will require previously exempt mutual funds to register with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) as well as some other changes to the Mutual Funds Law (the Law).

The Cayman Islands Government will shortly be introducing new legislation to regulate and require registration of closed-ended funds (which will become known as ‘private funds’) with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), for the first time.  The Private Funds Bill, 2020 (the Bill) will be debated by the Legislative Assembly in its 30 January sitting.  As a result, the exact terms are subject to change but the major components of the legislation are broadly agreed upon.

The last half of the last decade saw a surge of activity in the alternative IPO space through the use of special purpose acquisition vehicles (or SPACs). The concept is elegant in its simplicity: a SPAC is no more than a newly incorporated company that goes to IPO to raise capital to fund a strategic acquisition 18-24 months later. The SPAC IPO is accordingly referred to as a “blind capital raise” or an “IPO of a company to be named at a later date” and SPACs - new companies without assets, liabilities or operations of their own – are also known as “cash shells” or “blank cheques”.

All individuals or companies conducting business in the British Virgin Islands are required to obtain a trade licence from the Department of Trade, authorising the particular business operations.  Any trade licence issued is valid until 31 December of any given year.

In this article, Aki Corsoni-Husain and Andrew Knight look at the movement by the Cypriot government towards implementation of DAC 6, and discuss the features of the draft bill currently in progress.

The Securities and Investment Business Act 2010 (SIBA) has been recently amended by the Securities and Investment Business (Amendment) Act 2019 (the SIBA Amendment). The SIBA Amendment came into force on 31 December 2019 subject to various transitional provisions.