The US Securities and Exchange Commission and France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers have entered a supervisory memorandum designed to make oversight of asset managers operating across the two markets more direct.
The arrangement creates a framework for consultation, cooperation and exchange of supervisory information. It covers SEC-regulated investment advisers and investment companies, along with investment-service providers and other firms supervised by the AMF. The agencies said the mechanism is intended to improve their ability to identify and address risks where a regulated business has operations, clients or group relationships on both sides of the Atlantic.
The memorandum also clears a practical regulatory bottleneck. The SEC said it can resume processing new and pending US investment-adviser registration applications from asset managers supervised by the AMF. Registration remains subject to the US statutory and regulatory requirements; the agreement does not grant a licence by itself or replace either authority’s enforcement powers.
For firms, the significant change is not a new conduct rule but a channel through which home and host regulators can request information and coordinate supervisory work. That can include discussion of a firm’s activities, compliance arrangements and risks relevant to the requesting authority’s mandate.
The bilateral framework sits alongside, rather than above, domestic law. Information exchanged under it remains governed by the confidentiality and permitted-use protections described in the memorandum and by the agencies’ respective legal constraints.
Read the SEC’s official announcement.
