How the UK’s AIFMR proposals misdiagnose private capital markets
27.05.2025 – Articles
The UK risks becoming a regulatory museum; preserving an obsolete EU framework while global capital flies ever more rapidly to the EU and jurisdictions embracing commercial pragmatism.
Post-Brexit, the UK had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shed inherited EU regulatory baggage and craft a regime reflecting domestic market realities and common law traditions. Instead, HM Treasury and the FCA have initiated a paradoxical reform of Alternative Investment Fund Managers Regulations (AIFMR): expanding bureaucratic oversight under the guise of reducing burdens; an Orwellian example of suggesting that more is less. While policymakers openly acknowledge the systemic and legal flaws in the AIFMD, their proposed solutions risk exacerbating the UK’s competitive decline in global capital markets.