Description
Responsibilities

• Description

The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) established by the Financial Security Act of 1 August 2003. It was formed from the merger of the Commission des opérations de bourse (COB), the Conseil des marchés financiers (CMF) and the Conseil de discipline de la gestion financière (CDGF).

The objective in amalgamating these bodies was to improve the efficiency of France’s financial regulatory system and to give it greater visibility.

The AMF is an independent public body with legal personality and financial autonomy. Its remit is to:

• safeguard investments in financial instruments and in all other savings and investment vehicles
• ensure that investors receive material information
• maintain orderly financial markets

The AMF also lends its support to financial market regulation at the European and International levels.

The AMF comprises:

• a Board with 16 members
• a Enforcement Committee with 12 members
• specialised commissions and consultative commissions

The finance minister designates the Director General of the Treasury or his representative who has a non-voting seat on all AMF bodies.

The chairman of the AMF is named by decree of the president of the Republic for a non-renewable five-year term.

The AMF has a staff headed by a Secretary General. The staff is composed of public servants under contract, private employees and public servants. At year-end 2010 the headcount was 403.

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• Responsibilities

The AMF has four kinds of responsibilities:

• regulation
• authorisation
• supervision
• enforcement

It has jurisdiction over:

• Corporate Finance activities and disclosures: The AMF regulates corporate finance activities and disclosures by listed companies. These companies are required to inform the public regularly about their business, results and financial dealings. The AMF oversees and monitors information to ensure that it is accurate, precise, fair and timely and that it is disseminated to the financial community as a whole.


• Collective investment products(1): The AMF authorises the creation of open-end and closed-end funds. It verifies the information set out in the simplified prospectuses that must be provided to customers before they invest in any product. In the case of complex products, such as structured funds, the AMF makes sure that the special features of theses products and their effects are clearly described to investors.


• Market and infrastructure: The AMF sets the principles of organisation and operation applicable to market operators, such as Euronext Paris, which organises trading in equities, fixed income securities and derivatives, securities settlement systems and central securities depositaries, such as Euroclear France. The AMF also approves the rulebooks of clearing houses, such as Clearnet, which centralise transactions on a daily basis; and it establishes the operating requirements for clearing members.


• Services Providers: (credit institutions authorised to provide investment services, investment firms, management companies, financial investment advisers, direct marketers). The AMF sets conduct of business rules and other requirements applicable to professionals authorised to provide investment services. It authorises management companies. The AMF approves the professional organisations that represent financial investment advisers (FIAs). In addition, the AMF monitors direct marketers who work for investment management companies.

The AMF is also empowered to conduct inspections and investigations. Its Enforcement Committee may impose penalties or sanctions to punish breaches of the AMF General Regulation or professional obligations.

If a criminal offence is suspected, the AMF Board refers the inspection or investigation report to the public prosecutor.

The AMF Ombudsman provides assistance to non-professional investors (consumers and non-profit associations). In addition to promoting understanding of financial markets, the Ombudsman's office handles complaints about financial information, order execution, transfers of securities accounts and asset managements. It also seek out-of-court settlements in the event of disputes between individual investors and firms.

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(1) Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS), Real estate investment trusts (SCPIs), Investment trusts (FCPs), Companies specialised in financing for film production (SOFICA) and non-industrial fisching (SOFIPECHE)

Update: 6 August 2012