Clifford Chance

Pre-marketing of investment funds in the Netherlands

4 October 2021

The bill implementing the European Union's Directive on the Cross-Border Distribution of Funds (CBDF) has been adopted by the Dutch Lower Chamber on 23 September 2021. Its adoption by the Dutch Upper Chamber is expected on 12 October 2021, followed a few days thereafter by its implementation in the Dutch Financial Supervision Act.

The CBDF covers a variety of matters in order to take away barriers and to further harmonise the European regime for the cross-border distribution of investment funds (both AIFs and UCITS) with a view to achieving an even more competitive and integrated internal market for investment funds.  Such matters include notification procedures (for both registration and de-registration), marketing communications, making facilities available to investors, costs for supervision and pre-marketing.

This briefing focusses on pre-marketing, given its novelty for the Dutch market and the scope and application of the pre-marketing rules (which also extend to non-EU fund managers).  The CBDF covers the pre-marketing of AIFs, but not the pre-marketing of UCITS.  The Netherlands did not have a specific pre-marketing regime for AIFs prior to the CBDF being implemented and is now goldplating CBDF by applying the pre-marketing rules to non-EU fund managers as well.

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