IRELAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Vincent McConnon, William Foot, John Adams, Michelle Holligan, Nicole Burke and Graham Bloomfield, Matheson LLP
Credit Servicing Firms Regime. Unless they are regulated financial service providers authorised to provide credit in Ireland, credit servicing firms need to be authorised under the Credit Servicing Firms Regime if they carry out credit servicing activities that come within the scope of the Credit Servicing Firms Regime and that go beyond the scope of the Credit Servicing Regulations. The second is the regime for authorised credit servic - ers under the Credit Servicing Regulations. If credit servicers carry out credit servicing activities that fall within the scope of the Credit Servicing Regulations (ie, the servic - ing in Ireland of NPLs originated by EU credit institutions on behalf of purchasers who are not EU credit institutions) and are not other - wise exempt, they need to be either (i) author - ised as a credit servicer under the Credit Servicing Regulations or (ii) authorised as a credit servicer under the equivalent transpos - ing regulations for the Credit Servicing Direc - tive in a different EU member state, and must passport that authorisation into Ireland under the terms of the Credit Servicing Regulations. • Credit servicing firms that were authorised under the Credit Servicing Firms Regime before 30 December 2023 are deemed to be authorised as credit servicers under the Credit Servicing Regulations. This was an important concession for the (approximately 20) Irish credit servicing firms operating under the Credit Servicing Firms Regime. • The Central Bank of Ireland has been des - ignated as the national competent authority under the Credit Servicing Regulations. The Listing Act Regulation (EU) 2024/2809, Directive (EU) 2024/2810 and Directive (EU) 2024/2811 (together, the “Listing Act”) were published in the Official Journal of the European Union on
14 November 2024 and entered into force on 4 December 2024 (although in some cases the obligations will be introduced on a staggered timeline and will not come into effect until 14 to 24 months following entry into force). The Listing Act is relevant for Irish issuers. Its overall objectives are to make the EU’s public capital markets more attractive, facilitate the listing of smaller companies by streamlining the listing process (which should ultimately reduce regulatory compliance costs) and enhance legal clarity, while ensuring an appropriate level of investor protection and market integrity. Amongst other matters, the Listing Act amends the Prospectus Regulation, the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) and the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation. The Prospectus Regula - tion amendments include: • allowing future annual/interim financials to be incorporated by reference into a base pro - spectus without a supplement; • extending the walkaway right period for investors from two to three working days where a supplement is published, or the final offer price/amount of securities being offered cannot be disclosed; • expanding prospectus exemptions, includ - ing the exemption for secondary issuances of securities fungible with securities already admitted to trading; • making the EUR150 million higher exemption threshold permanent for non-equity securities offers by credit institutions; • permitting more documents to be incorpo - rated by reference; • relaxing the risk factor ranking requirement slightly;
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