On 2 July 2024, the Luxembourg law (“Law”) implementing the new EU framework for the effective and harmonized management of digital risks in the financial sector, namely the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), was published in the Luxembourg official gazette. Like DORA, the Law will apply from 17 January 2025.
On 20 July 2023, the Luxembourg Parliament adopted a law reforming the right of establishment in Luxembourg (“Reform”). It amends the Luxembourg law dated 2 September 2011 regulating access to the professions of craftsperson, trader, manufacturer and certain liberal professions as amended (“Business License Law”).
The Reform aims to adapt the Business License Law to embrace the changes in the regulatory, economic, technical, technological, entrepreneurial and artisanal environments and to stimulate entrepreneurship.
European Union, online public access to the Luxembourg register of beneficial owners (RBO) was temporarily suspended.
On 16 December 2022, online access to the RBO was re-established for professionals subject to the amended law of 12 November 2004 on the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing (“Professionals”), such as professionals from the financial and insurance sectors, auditors, real estate agents and developers, persons carrying out a family office activity, notaries and lawyers.
On 1 February 2023, the Luxembourg Business Register announced that all entities registered with the Luxembourg trade and companies register that have made an RBO declaration will be receiving a confidential code allowing them to access their own RBO data and order an RBO extract even though they do not qualify as Professionals.
The forthcoming visit to Luxembourg of the Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, is certainly not unrelated to the recent adoption of the law creating a new procedure of out-of-court dissolution without liquidation for certain commercial companies. That law is the first part of the more ambitious reform aiming at preserving businesses and modernizing bankruptcy law, currently pending before the Luxembourg Parliament. Its objective is to remove, in a quick and cost-efficient way, dormant and empty shell companies without economic reality and in breach of applicable laws to prevent them from being used for criminal purposes.
Through the EU Directive on Restructuring and Insolvency of 20 June 2019 (EUR 2019/1023, “Directive”), the European Union has imposed an obligation on its member states to offer a more attractive and flexible restructuring scheme in their respective local law. The initial deadline to do so had been 17 July 2021. Only a handful of countries (most notably Germany and The Netherlands) had implemented the Directive within the initial deadline, whilst the other countries made use of the possibility to ask for a one year extension.
On 9 February 2022, the Luxembourg Parliament adopted the draft bill amending the Luxembourg law of 22 March 2004 on securitization, as amended governing Luxembourg securitization vehicles. The Law aims at modernizing the 2004 Law by increasing the flexibility and legal certainty of the Luxembourg regime while ensuring effective protection for investors.
The law of 21 July 2021, effective as of 31 July 2021, has implemented the European prudential regime applicable to investment firms authorized under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II set out under the Investment Firms Directive and the Investment Firms Regulation into Luxembourg law.
On 15 June 2021, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) published an updated version of its Q&A on the statuses of PFS-Part II with respect to the granting of loans to the public.