Yesterday (october 9th), a royal decree was published in the Belgian State Gazette which, in short, amends and further specifies the rules relating to:
- the definitions of "qualified investor" and "institutional and professional investor" for purposes of the UCITS Act;
- public take-over bids;
- closed-end private investment companies ("private privak" / "pricaf privé");
- markets in financial instruments; and
- the obligations of issuers of financial instruments that are admitted to trading on a regulated market.
The royal decree enters into force on 19 October 2013 and follows the publication of the Belgian law of 17 July 2013, which amended the Prospectus Act, the Financial Markets Supervision Act, the Public Takeover Act, the Transparency Act and the UCITS Act. Our newsletter discussing these changes can be found here.
Among other things, the law of 17 July 2013 introduced in the UCITS Act the concept of "qualified investors", which encompasses the existing but rewritten concept of "institutional and professional investors", in order to align the UCITS Act with the concepts of MiFID.
The royal decree published yesterday and the law of 17 July 2013 transpose directives 2010/73/EU (amending the Prospectus and Transparency Directive) and 2010/78/EU (the "Omnibus-I Directive").
