All provisions of the Protection of Investors Amendment Law are now in force. As a result, collective investment schemes can be either open-ended or closed-ended and can elect to be either Authorised or Registered. It is anticipated that new Prospectus, Authorised Closed-ended and Registered Collective Investment Scheme Rules will come into effect in the middle of November.

As a consequence of closed-ended collective investment schemes now falling within the definition of category 1 controlled investment, it will be deemed that Closed-ended fund Administrators will have the appropriate restricted activities in relation to category 1 to permit licensees to continue to act for closed-ended collective investment schemes.

Now that the relevant aspects of COBO have been repealed, consent is not required for further or additional raising of monies for existing closed-ended funds. Until such time as the rules for the Authorised and Registered collective investment scheme regime come into force the GFSC wishes to be notified of additional monies raised and, in the prospectus (or similar) issued in respect of an additional raising of monies a prescribed form of disclosure is required.

The GFSC will be issuing further interim guidance as to the relevant application forms and wording to be included in a prospectus shortly pending the new rules being brought into force.