Drawing the battle lines

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May was a tumultuous time for the AIFMD. Early stories surfacing in the UK press just after the UK General Election spoke of George Osborne (UK Chancellor of the Exchequer) preparing to go to Brussels to fight the “Hedge Fund Directive” but facing an immediate and hostile barrage from France’s President Sarkozy and Germany’s Chancellor Merkel.

At the same time, a European Parliament draft Directive was circulating with some proposals for text, derived from European socialist MEPs, which would have been game changing for the Private Equity industry. Then in the middle of the month came the votes of the European Parliament’s ECON Committee and the ECOFIN Council, adopting their respective positions for the upcoming trilateral negotiations.

In the event, the meetings of ECON and ECOFIN passed off relatively uneventfully. On Monday 17 May, Sharon Bowles, the liberal UK MEP chairing the ECON Committee, assisted by J P Gauzès, the Rapporteur, shepherded a draft directive through the Committee which was less hostile to industry than had been feared, but which still contains provisions which are extremely onerous, including thirdcountry provisions which may prove unworkable.