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International funds law firm

CMS offers expert advice at every stage of the funds lifecycle – from planning and launch through governance, restructuring and exit.

The international funds industry is changing at unprecedented speed. Concerns about the environment, sustainability and governance are changing the way many funds work and invest. Asset tokenisation, blockchain, fintech and artificial intelligence (AI) have huge disruptive potential, as do innovative alternative indirect investment vehicles and alternative asset classes. And, inevitably, the regulatory and tax environment for funds continues to evolve.

Whether you are launching, operating, lending to or investing in a fund or an alternative indirect investment vehicle, you need lawyers who have got your back, and who understand not only your business and your requirements, but also the funds landscape and its markets:

Sus­tain­able In­vest­ment
ESG has dis­rup­ted the funds sec­tor, yet it does im­pact it in many dif­fer­ent ways. The is­sues that you face as in­vest­ment funds man­ager or in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestor de­pend on many factors: the evol­u­tion of the reg­u­lat­ory land­scape; and the read­i­ness of y
03/01/2023
Im­pact of AI & Tech­no­logy on the Funds sec­tor
AI & Tech­no­logy are dis­rupt­ing the in­vest­ment funds sec­tor, and laws and reg­u­la­tions are be­ing amended to move to­wards a more di­git­al en­vir­on­ment for fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions, as­set man­agers and in­vestors.   Videos | Jar­gon Buster Wheth­er you are a fund man­ager or an in­vestor, gain a ba­sic in­sight in­to the most im­port­ant AI & Tech defin­i­tions. Watch CMS Funds Group short Jar­gon Buster videos.MiCA reg­u­la­tions­Fun­gible & Non-fun­gible as­set­sKnow­ing your cus­tom­er & Cus­tom­er due di­li­genceVir­tu­al as­sets & vir­tu­al as­set ser­vice pro­vider­sUtil­ity tokensSe­cur­ity & Pay­ment token­s­Token­isa­tionDLT & Block­chain Event | Will block­chain fi­nally dis­rupt the full funds value chain in 2023? (Nov. 2022) Not­with­stand­ing the mar­ket's high ex­pect­a­tions, pi­on­eer­ing pro­jects have faced dif­fi­culties for a num­ber of reas­ons in­clud­ing lack of clar­ity on reg­u­la­tions and a lim­ited num­ber of ready sec­tor par­ti­cipants. This may soon change. It seems that all pieces of the puzzle will come to­geth­er in 2023 and fi­nally un­lock the op­por­tun­it­ies.We have held roundtable dis­cus­sions in­volving lead­ing speak­ers at all levels of the fund value chain such as Tokeny, Let­z­Token, Op­por­tun­ity, Caceis, Q  Se­cur­it­ies, Nor­dic­Ninja VC and Montis.This event cov­ers: Funds token­isa­tion Funds in­vest­ing in crypto-as­sets Sec­ond­ary mar­ket and dis­tri­bu­tion­View our re­cord­ing.Down­load our write up. We­bin­ar | Token­isa­tion as a solu­tion (Jun. 2022)  Di­git­al­isa­tion is chan­ging the in­vest­ment mar­ket for in­vestors and fund man­agers. Vir­tu­al as­sets are grow­ing and in­sti­tu­tions are be­com­ing in­creas­ingly in­volved across a range of activ­it­ies from tra­di­tion­al fund in­vest­ments to as­sets such as real es­tate and crypto-as­sets.   This we­bin­ar cov­ers: The trends and op­por­tun­it­ies for di­git­al as­sets;The evolving reg­u­la­tion and in­fra­struc­ture;New products and uses; andWhat in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors and man­agers are do­ingView our re­cord­ing.Down­load our slides. We­bin­ar | All you need to know on funds token­isa­tion: Reas­ons, be­ne­fits, cur­rent pro­jects, land­scape & latest trends (Oct. 2021)  Token­isa­tion is now mak­ing it faster, easi­er, cheap­er, and more se­cure to launch, op­er­ate and close a fund. Token­isa­tion and di­git­al­isa­tion through Dis­trib­uted Ledger Tech­no­logy are at the centre of this op­por­tun­ity.Can funds be token­ised and how?Can tech­no­logy bring be­ne­fits?What are they? What are the op­por­tun­it­ies and risks?What are the lessоns learned from land­mark pro­jects?Down­load our present­a­tion. More videos on the im­pact of AI & Tech­no­logy on the Fund sec­tor.   CMS Funds Group videos fea­ture short dis­cus­sions between CMS law­yers and key play­ers from both the tech­no­logy and fin­an­cial ser­vices sec­tors, provid­ing a per­son­al in­sight in­to the di­git­al­isa­tion of funds and Fintech, with par­tic­u­lar fo­cus on the leg­al, reg­u­lat­ory and busi­ness as­pects of in­nov­a­tion and di­git­al­isa­tion of as­sets through token­isa­tion, block­chain and the use of tech­no­logy for in­vest­ments, ad­min­is­tra­tion and ESG re­port­ing. View our videos. 
06/10/2022
Risk, Re­si­li­ence and Repu­ta­tion We­bin­ar Series
We are launch­ing a tailored train­ing pro­gramme fo­cus­ing on spe­cif­ic top­ics rel­ev­ant to par­ti­cipants in the in­ter­na­tion­al funds in­dustry fo­cused on Risk, Re­si­li­ence and Repu­ta­tion. Wheth­er you are a fund man­ager or in­vestor, our ses­sions will cov­er a
01/12/2022
CMS Ex­pert Guide to pop­u­lar in­vest­ment vehicles
The se­lec­tion of a vehicle has a num­ber of com­mon themes in­clud­ing the loc­a­tion of the as­sets, man­age­ment and the in­vestors. Funds tar­geted at loc­al in­vestors and mar­kets will fre­quently in­volve suit­able loc­al vehicles. The po­s­i­tion changes where the
Comparable
01/12/2022
CMS Ex­pert Guide to private place­ment of funds rules and law
 In­form­a­tion provided as of Decem­ber 2022.When im­ple­ment­ing the Al­tern­at­ive In­vest­ment Fund Man­agers Dir­ect­ive (“AIFMD”), some EU States have tightened or severely re­stric­ted their private place­ment re­gimes, which is im­port­ant when non-EU man­agers an
27/12/2022
CMS Ex­pert Guide to AIFM pass­port­ing
 In­form­a­tion provided as of 1 Decem­ber 2022.The EU Com­mis­sion pro­moted pass­port­ing rights as one of the key be­ne­fits for hedge, private equity, real es­tate and oth­er al­tern­at­ive in­vest­ment fund man­agers au­thor­ised un­der the Al­tern­at­ive In­vest­ment Fun
27/12/2022
CMS Ex­pert Guide to UCITS pass­port­ing
 In­form­a­tion provided as of 1 Decem­ber 2022The UCITS Dir­ect­ive was es­tab­lished to har­mon­ise re­tail col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes in the EU through the in­tro­duc­tion of a com­mon in­vest­ment vehicle known as a “UCITS”. One of the key be­ne­fits of the UCIT
05/04/2022
Back to Ba­sics brief­ings
CMS Funds Group Back to Ba­sics brief­ings in­tend to provide high level in­sights re­gard­ing funds fun­da­ment­als, funds vehicles and op­er­a­tion­al con­sid­er­a­tions New brief­ings are pub­lished on a reg­u­lar basis, cov­er­ing a spe­cif­ic jur­is­dic­tion or top­ic, and provid­ing ba­sic es­sen­tial tech­nic­al ex­plan­a­tions.

A complete service

  • We advise on all the key asset classes, including private equity, real estate, infrastructure, hedge, venture capital and debt, as well as across private, listed and authorised funds
  • Our expertise is allied with industry specialism, including energy, real estate, life sciences and healthcare, hotels and leisure, infrastructure and project finance and financial institutions
  • We offer clients a ‘one-stop shop’ service, leveraging various CMS practices such as tax, regulatory, private equity, venture capital, real estate, technology, employment, dispute resolution and finance
  • Our real estate funds practice advises on some of the market’s largest fundraisings, clubs and indirect investments
  • We are the market leader for REITs and closed-ended listed funds, with our team advising on IPOs, private REITs and secondary fund raisings
  • We have a stand-out open-ended and UCITS funds offering.

Industry players

  • Our lawyers play a leading role in complex conversations – such as the role of tokenisation and AI – which are shaping the future of the funds sector
  • Through our strong ties with industry organisations (IPF, AREF, INREV, BCO, BPF, LPeC, BVCA, EPRA, IA, and ABBL) we are at the forefront of conversations on the most pressing topics affecting the international and local funds industries.

A global reach

Our clients entrust us with exclusive mandates to advise their multi-manager teams on their investments globally. We have over 130 specialised funds lawyers in core funds jurisdictions:

Other jurisdictions we are active in: Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Poland, Norway, Romania, Ukraine, US regulatory.

Work credentials

 The quality of our work is recognised by awards, rankings, and landmark deals such as:

  • 20 Rankings in Legal 500 and Chambers, including Tier 1 for Real Estate Investments Funds (UK), Retail Investment Funds (UK), Investment Funds (Scotland), and Investment Funds (Poland)
  • 1st French fund invested in crypto assets
  • 1st real estate club-deal through blockchain in Europe
  • 1st corporate venture capital fund in Poland to commercialise new tech startups
  • 1st Italian credit fund specialised in the business of trade receivables
  • Adviser to innovation projects submitted to the 1st Spanish sandbox
  • Affiliate of the Year Award 2019 - AREF (Association of Real Estate Funds)

CMS Funds Group is getting recognition as a top tier funds firm in Europe and Asia, growing globally by providing a “one international firm” coordinated, consistently excellent funds platform.

Find out more

CMS Funds Group Directory rankings

CMS Funds Global Brochure

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30/06/2021
CMS Funds Mar­ket Study 2021
Peri­od­ic­ally, CMS takes sound­ings on the state of the mar­ket from our funds-re­lated cli­ents. Giv­en the un­pre­ced­en­ted nature of the last 12 months we thought this was an op­por­tune time to look back over the last few years. This study ana­lyses the key mar­ket trends in fund doc­u­ment­a­tion of over 300 funds es­tab­lished in Europe, Asia, USA and off­shore jur­is­dic­tions ad­vised on by CMS of­fices through­out 2017 to 2020. We have also con­duc­ted cli­ent in­ter­views, which are high­lighted in this re­port, and con­duc­ted a se­lect­ive sur­vey of our in­ter­na­tion­al cli­ent base.We trust this CMS Funds Mar­ket Study will be a use­ful guide for both man­agers and in­vestors this year. The size of our deal sample and the range of coun­tries in­volved means that the study should be a uniquely valu­able and rich re­source for man­agers and in­vestors. Our re­search in­dic­ates that funds in­dustry play­ers are clear on how to move for­ward and that, while strategies may have shif­ted, there are reas­ons for op­tim­ism and bullish­ness, un­like the gloom that des­cen­ded after the glob­al fin­an­cial crisis in 2008.Look­ing for­ward we see an act­ive funds mar­ket, with Lux­em­bourg be­ing the jur­is­dic­tion of choice for European funds. ESG is now a key fo­cus for in­vestors. This mar­ket im­petus and reg­u­lat­ory drivers are mov­ing sus­tain­able in­vest­ment from a niche fo­cus in­to the main­stream for in­vestors and man­agers alike. We also see man­agers in­creas­ingly look­ing at the be­ne­fits and im­pact of AI and tech­no­logy with the token­isa­tion of as­sets and the use of block­chain. We see this pace of change ac­cel­er­at­ing.If you have any feed­back or ques­tions, we would love to hear from you.
Sus­tain­able In­vest­ment
SF­DR – Are you ready?

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07/06/2023
ES­As put for­ward com­mon un­der­stand­ing of gre­en­wash­ing
Back­groun­d­As part of its as­pir­a­tion that su­per­visors play an es­sen­tial role in identi­fy­ing, pre­vent­ing, in­vest­ig­at­ing, sanc­tion­ing, and re­medi­at­ing gre­en­wash­ing, the European Com­mis­sion (EC) has is­sued...
05/06/2023
UAE Cor­por­ate Tax Law: What Con­sti­tutes Qual­i­fy­ing In­come for Free Zone...
Back­groundThe UAE en­acted its Cor­por­ate Tax Law (the “CTL”) in Decem­ber 2022 (Fed­er­al De­cree-Law No. (47) of 2022 on the Tax­a­tion of Cor­por­a­tions and Busi­nesses). The CTL came in­to force on 1 June...
05/06/2023
To­wards the in­tro­duc­tion of a vi­gil­ance duty in terms of sus­tain­ab­il­ity...
We are cur­rently fa­cing an evolving reg­u­lat­ory land­scape, where sus­tain­ab­il­ity mat­ters are more and more con­sidered and where act­ors of the fin­an­cial sec­tor are re­quired to face the neg­at­ive ex­tern­al­it­ies...
11/05/2023
SF­DR on course for sig­ni­fic­ant change in ES­As’ Con­sulta­tion Pa­per
On 5 April 2023, the European Com­mis­sion (“EC”) pub­lished its long-awaited Q&A doc­u­ment cla­ri­fy­ing key points re­lat­ing to the Sus­tain­able Fin­ance Dis­clos­ure Reg­u­la­tion (“SF­DR”), in par­tic­u­lar...
05/05/2023
FCA con­firms changes to UK equity mar­kets trans­par­ency re­gime and fi­nal­ises...
In PS23/4: Im­prov­ing Equity Sec­ond­ary Mar­kets, the Fin­an­cial Con­duct Au­thor­ity (FCA) has con­firmed a range of tar­geted changes to the UK’s post-trade trans­par­ency re­gime, pre-trade trans­par­ency waivers...
25/04/2023
CSSF su­per­vis­ory pri­or­it­ies in sus­tain­able fin­ance
On 6 April 2023, the Com­mis­sion de sur­veil­lance du sec­teur fin­an­ci­er (the « CSSF ») pub­lished its su­per­vis­ory pri­or­it­ies in sus­tain­able fin­ance, which are rel­ev­ant for cred­it in­sti­tu­tions, in­vest­ment...
24/04/2023
Cor­por­ate Tax Thought Lead­er­ship Series: Anti-Ab­use Rules for Small Busi­ness...
Back­groundThe UAE en­acted its Cor­por­ate Tax Law in Decem­ber 2022 (Fed­er­al De­cree-Law No. (47) of 2022 on the Tax­a­tion of Cor­por­a­tions and Busi­nesses). The Cor­por­ate Tax Law ap­plies with ef­fect from 1...
14/04/2023
Re­view of the Seni­or Man­agers and Cer­ti­fic­a­tion Re­gime (SM&CR)
On 30 March 2023, the Pruden­tial Reg­u­la­tion Au­thor­ity (“PRA”) and Fin­an­cial Con­duct Au­thor­ity (“FCA”) (the PRA and FCA to­geth­er be­ing the “Reg­u­lat­ors”) pub­lished a joint Dis­cus­sion Pa­per (DP1/23)...
12/04/2023
UAE Cor­por­ate Tax: Small Busi­ness Re­lief Cri­ter­ia
Back­groundThe UAE is­sued its land­mark Cor­por­ate Tax Law in Decem­ber 2022 (Fed­er­al De­cree-Law No. (47) of 2022 on the Tax­a­tion of Cor­por­a­tions and Busi­nesses). The Cor­por­ate Tax Law ap­plies with ef­fect...
06/04/2023
Bill of law 8183: mod­ern­ising the Lux­em­bourg tool­box to­wards more re­tail­isa­tion
Back­groun­dOn 24 March 2023, the Lux­em­bourg gov­ern­ment put for­ward the bill of law 8183 (the Bill) which com­prises sig­ni­fic­ant amend­ments to four Lux­em­bourg product laws, namely the law of 23 Ju­ly 2016...
29/03/2023
The CSSF launches SF­DR data col­lec­tion for Lux­em­bourg in­vest­ment funds
1. Con­textSince 1 Janu­ary 2023, the in­vest­ment funds man­agers (here­after the “IFMs”) sub­ject to the Sus­tain­able Fin­ance Dis­clos­ure Reg­u­la­tion  (or “SF­DR”) have been gath­er­ing and dis­clos­ing the...
16/04/2023
ACC Europe An­nu­al Con­fer­ence 2023
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