(In)Efficiency of the Regulatory Supervision over the Managers of the Alternative Investment Funds – A Case of “Crypto” Funds

With the adoption of the AIFM Directive, the EU legislator aimed to include under the regulatory framework the managers of all kinds of collective investment undertakings that raise funds from the investors and manage these funds in accordance with a predefined investment strategy for the benefit of the investors. The emergence of the new forms of collecting and management of assets, especially in the form of crypto funds, revealed some important weaknesses of the current regulatory regime established with the AIFM Directive, in particular the weaknesses related to the (in)activity of the competent supervisory authorities in the event of the emergence of new types of alternative investment funds and their managers that are only in the form (not in terms of substance and purposes) different from the classic types of such funds. These weaknesses thus raise some doubts about the adequacy of the current supervisory system over the managers of the alternative investment funds.

Key words: alternative investment fund, manager, ICO, blockchain, supervisory authority.