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Managed Funds Association

MFA

MFA represents global hedge funds and private equity firms, advocating for policies that support alternative investment managers.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Member of the European Parliament) and Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation

27 Oct 2025 · SIU

Meeting with Helene Bussieres (Head of Unit Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

23 Oct 2025 · Securitisation, SIU, NBFI

Meeting with Gilles Boyer (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

16 Oct 2025 · Securitisation

Meeting with Sirpa Pietikäinen (Member of the European Parliament)

10 Apr 2025 · EU regulatory developments

MFA urges targeted reforms to EU securitisation regulatory framework

25 Mar 2025
Topic — The European Commission is conducting a review of the EU's securitisation regulatory framework.
Message — MFA suggests narrowing the securitisation definition to align with US rules. They call for removing redundant due diligence for fund managers. They also propose allowing fund managers to sponsor transactions.123
Why — These changes would lower legal costs and allow managers to offer new products.45
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Meeting with Tatyana Panova (Head of Unit Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) and Penta

10 Mar 2025 · Discussion on Short Selling Regulation framework

Response to Savings and Investments Union

3 Mar 2025

1) Alternative asset management is a global industry, and institutional investors rely on access to managers located both in the EU and in third countries to facilitate the diversification of their investment portfolios and manage risk more effectively. EU institutional investors, including pension funds and charitable foundations, may wish to utilise managers outside Europe in order to secure a globally balanced portfolio. Unduly curtailing that access would harm EU investors, and would slow the development of EU capital markets. 2) MFA supports the mission to revive the use of securitisation in a prudent manner, to unlock financing for European businesses and greater diversification options for investors. Right-sizing the definition of securitisation, removing duplicative due diligence and risk retention requirements, and aligning the securitisation framework with other jurisdictions are examples of key enhancements that will improve the attractiveness of EU securitisation markets to investors, including EU and global investment managers. The due diligence requirements in the Securitisation Regulation are disproportionate to the risks associated with securitisations and fail to recognise distinct categories of institutional investors that invest in securitisations. These requirements have served as a significant impediment to would-be securitisation investors, especially as they are duplicative of the requirements placed directly on sell-side parties. 3) Investors use short selling when they believe, based on fundamental research, that a stock price is overvalued. Short selling is an essential component of healthy and efficient capital markets. It promotes liquidity, stabilises markets, and helps investors and companies reduce risk in their portfolios. It enhances price discovery and investor confidence, dampens market volatility, and helps detect corporate fraud. Targeted improvements to the EUs short selling rules can help foster more dynamic European markets and improve the investor experience. The current disclosure regime requires individual firm public disclosure of net short positions which has the effect of limiting the effectiveness of short selling as a valuable market tool. It can limit trading activity and has been shown to cause both herding behaviour and volatility in markets. MFA recommends that the requirements are instead focused on information that is more decision-useful to investors, publicly disclosing the aggregate net short positions by issuer. A further enhancement would be the creation of a centralised portal for regulatory reporting of net short positions which provides reporting efficiencies across member states. 4) The implementation of well-functioning consolidated tapes for various asset classes in the EU will improve access to timely, accurate market data. MFA supports additional measures set out by ESMA that make the pricing of market data more transparent and subject to regulatory scrutiny. This includes requiring trading venues and approved publication arrangements to break out their market data costs into specific categories, justify their cost allocations, and explain any proposed fee differences between customer types. Increased price transparency will ensure market participants have access to affordable, accurate, and timely market data. 5) The nonbank financial intermediation ecosystem includes a diverse set of financial participants including alternative asset managers. It is inappropriate to treat all financial activity outside the banking system as a monolith that is deserving of the same level of macroprudential regulation as banks. Nonbanks are subject to distinct regulatory frameworks that serve distinct purposes. The Commission should ensure the EU is at the forefront of this growing source of capital and seizes the opportunities it presents for businesses to invest in their growth, while embracing the benefits that diverse market participation brings to the SIU.
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Meeting with John Berrigan (Director-General Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

19 Nov 2024 · CMU, NBFI

Meeting with Peter Wagner (Director Foreign Policy Instruments)

24 Sept 2024 · Meeting with Deputy DDG for European Affairs - discussion on European Affaires

MFA Urges EU to End Individual Short Sale Disclosures

1 Dec 2023
Topic — Commission initiative aiming to reduce administrative reporting burdens for EU businesses by twenty-five percent.
Message — The association requests a shift from public individual disclosures to anonymised, aggregated reporting. They also call for a single, automated EU portal and a total ban on short-selling restrictions.123
Why — This change would protect proprietary investment strategies and lower the operational costs of manual filings.45
Impact — Other market participants would lose the ability to track and mimic the trades of successful firms.6
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Meeting with Florian Denis (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness)

7 Nov 2023 · Capital Markets Union

Meeting with Paul Moley (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness)

6 Jun 2023 · CMU, RIS and SSR

Meeting with Florian Denis (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness)

13 Jan 2023 · Short Selling Regulation, CMU, AIFMD

Meeting with John Berrigan (Director-General Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

20 Jul 2022 · AIFMD, MFA in Europe

Meeting with Billy Kelleher (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and The Alternative Investment Management Association Limited

20 Jul 2022 · AIFMD

Meeting with Florian Denis (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness), Peter Power (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness)

10 May 2022 · AIFMD review ELTIF Regulation review MMFs

Meeting with Billy Kelleher (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

26 Apr 2022 · AIFMD

Meeting with John Berrigan (Director-General Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

13 Sept 2021 · Discussions concerning an upcoming event

Meeting with Florian Denis (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness), Nathalie De Basaldua (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness)

30 Apr 2021 · Financial services

Meeting with John Berrigan (Director-General Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

16 Jun 2020 · CMU, hedge funds, leverage and systemic risk

Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Cabinet of Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis) and FTI Consulting Belgium

14 Nov 2019 · CMU, sustainable finance

Meeting with Andrea Beltramello (Cabinet of Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis)

8 Jul 2019 · CMU, Sustainable Finance

Meeting with Nathalie De Basaldua Lemarchand (Cabinet of Vice-President Jyrki Katainen)

8 Jul 2019 · CMU and sustainable finance.

Meeting with Olivier Guersent (Director-General Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

4 Apr 2019 · Réforme des mesures prudentielles, l’impact du Brexit sur l’activité des fonds d’investissements américains dans l’Union européenne.

Meeting with Jan Ceyssens (Cabinet of Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis) and FTI Consulting Belgium

20 Feb 2019 · Investment Firm Review (IFR), Brexit

Meeting with Paulina Dejmek Hack (Cabinet of President Jean-Claude Juncker)

26 Jun 2018 · Capital Markets Union

Response to Institutional investors' and asset managers' duties regarding sustainability

21 Jun 2018

Managed Funds Association (“MFA”) welcomes the opportunity to provide comments to the European Commission (the “Commission”) on its proposal for a delegated regulation as regards organisational requirements and operating conditions for investment firms (the “Draft Delegated Regulation”). MFA supports the European Commission’s aim of promoting sustainable finance within the EU, and of closing the investment gap required to meet European climate and energy targets. Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) factors are of increasing importance to many investors both in the EU and in the United States, and we welcome the Commission’s efforts to enable the asset management industry and the finance sector more generally to meet this increasing demand for sustainability. MFA supports in particular the aim of the High-Level Expert Group (“HLEG”) of increasing transparency around products that are “green” or “sustainable” in nature, particularly products that are marketed as such. This increased transparency should enable clients to better assess whether the products and services that they purchase meet their sustainability criteria, and should also allow portfolio managers to make a more informed assessment of how sustainable their overall service is. We also support the client driven approach that the Commission is proposing, which is consistent with the views we expressed in our January 22, 2018 joint letter with the Alternative Investment Management Association, in response to the Commission’s prior public consultation. Please see the attached comment letter for MFA's detailed comments on the Proposed Delegated Regulation.
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Meeting with Olivier Guersent (Director-General Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

14 Dec 2017 · Prudential Regime proposal

Meeting with Marlene Madsen (Cabinet of Vice-President Jyrki Katainen)

14 Dec 2017 · ESA review, MiFID, prudential regime for investment firms

Response to Review of the European Supervisory Authorities

7 Dec 2017

Managed Funds Association (“MFA”) appreciates the opportunity to provide comments in response to the European Commission’s (the “Commission”) proposed regulation to amend various European regulations establishing European Supervisory Authorities (“ESAs”). While the proposed regulation covers a wide range of issues with respect to the various ESAs, our comments are narrowly focused on a few specific provisions in the proposed regulation that we believe could impact alternative fund managers, including U.S.-based managers. In particular, MFA encourages the Commission to consider amendments to the proposed regulation with respect to the following issues: 1. Coordination on delegation and outsourcing of activities as well as of risk transfers; 2. Annual third country equivalence review and confidential report by relevant ESAs; and, 3. Expanding the European Securities and Markets Authority’s (“ESMA”) temporary intervention powers under the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (“MiFIR”) to the marketing of alternative investment funds (“AIF”) and undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (“UCITS”) by their managers. We believe that our suggested amendments to these provisions, set out in our attached letter, would minimize regulatory and market uncertainty while remaining consistent with the underlying policy objectives of the proposed regulation and the Commission’s Capital Markets Union.
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Meeting with Jan Ceyssens (Cabinet of Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis)

13 Nov 2017 · ESAs review; EMIR; Investment Firm Review

Response to Commission Delegated Regulation amending the MiFID 2 Delegated Regulation with respect to systematic internaliser defint

18 Jul 2017

Managed Funds Association (MFA) attaches a comment letter in response to the European Commission's draft Delegated Regulation amending the MiFID 2 Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 on the specification of the definition of systematic internalisers for the purposes of the Directive.
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Meeting with Olivier Guersent (Director-General Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)

22 Jun 2017 · CMU, Brexit, AIFMD

Meeting with Marlene Madsen (Cabinet of Vice-President Jyrki Katainen)

22 Jun 2017 · CMU mid term review and financial services.

Meeting with Paulina Dejmek Hack (Cabinet of President Jean-Claude Juncker)

8 Feb 2017 · EU priorities

Meeting with Robert Schröder (Cabinet of Commissioner Carlos Moedas)

16 Sept 2016 · CCS follow up with Norway

Meeting with Ioana Diaconescu (Cabinet of Commissioner Pierre Moscovici), Maria Elena Scoppio (Cabinet of Commissioner Pierre Moscovici) and FTI Consulting Belgium

17 Feb 2016 · discussion on the economic outlook and the EU's regulatory agenda in relation to matters of taxation and financial services

Meeting with Matthew Baldwin (Cabinet of Commissioner Jonathan Hill)

16 Feb 2016 · Financial Policy

Meeting with Paulina Dejmek Hack (Cabinet of President Jean-Claude Juncker)

1 Oct 2015 · Capital Markets Union

Meeting with Ioana Diaconescu (Cabinet of Commissioner Pierre Moscovici)

9 Jun 2015 · CMU

Meeting with Lee Foulger (Cabinet of Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis)

8 Jun 2015 · Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II

Meeting with Jonathan Hill (Commissioner)

27 Feb 2015 · EU and US Regulatory Agenda in Financial Services

Meeting with Paulina Dejmek Hack (Cabinet of President Jean-Claude Juncker)

17 Dec 2014 · Investment Plan and Capital Markets Union

Meeting with Jan Ceyssens (Cabinet of Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis) and Kreab Worldwide

16 Dec 2014 · CMU

Meeting with Valérie Herzberg (Cabinet of Vice-President Jyrki Katainen) and FTI Consulting Belgium

16 Dec 2014 · Capital markets union

Meeting with Nathalie De Basaldua Lemarchand (Cabinet of Commissioner Jonathan Hill)

16 Dec 2014 · Capital Markets Union