Fees: the AMF updates its doctrine following the announcement of the abolition of transaction fees in situations of discretionary management

As a reminder, due to the conflicts of interest to which this type of remuneration can give rise, the AMF has decided to prohibit mandate managers from charging transaction fees calculated on the basis of the volume of transactions made. This ban will apply from 1 January 2027 for management mandates entered into from that date, and from 1 January 2028 for management mandates entered into prior to 1 January 2027, including contracts subject to tacit renewal signed before that date.

Position-Recommendation DOC-2013-10 has been amended, in particular to reflect the forthcoming ban on these fees, including the collection of entry and exit fees that do not accrue to the fund, and also to clarify its expectations regarding the fee structure for clients in cases where the custodian-account keeper and the manager are one and the same entity, or belong to the same group.

Instruction-Position-Recommendation DOC-2019-12 has been amended to stipulate that when the service of portfolio management on behalf of a third party is offered as part of a package, in particular together with the service of custody-account keeping (whether offered by the same entity or by another entity), the costs and fees relating to each service must be stated in the mandate concluded with a retail client.

In this respect, transaction fees are still permitted for custody-account keeping services, whose activity is, by its nature, linked to the volume of transactions. However, in cases where this service is provided by the mandate manager or by an entity from the same group, there is a risk of a conflict of interest, as is the case for transaction fees charged by the mandate manager. In order to limit conflicts of interest being carried over to other fee structures that entail the same risk of conflict of interest, the AMF's updated policy provides a specific framework for such situations. In these instances, the custodian-account keeper will have to justify its fee structure in such a way as to demonstrate that it is not significantly higher than that applicable to the same service provided outside the scope of discretionary management or by other managers outside the group.

To facilitate the identification of the main changes compared to the previous version, a redline version has been made available to professionals. It should be noted that only the official version, without redlining, is valid.