Does EU regulation provide appropriate protection for investors in exchange traded funds?

Biržoje prekiaujami fondai pritraukia vis daugiau investuotojų dėl pasyvaus investavimo strategijos, mažų komisinių mokesčių bei labai didelio fondų likvidumo. Fondų vienetais galima visą dieną prekiauti biržoje ir dėl visų šių išvardintų privalumų galima tikėtis, kad biržoje prekiaujami fondai taps tik dar svarbesne investicine priemone globaliose šių laikų finansų rinkose. Bendrųjų pasaulinių tendencijų fone, biržoje prekiaujamų fondų valdomo turto apimtys auga sparčiau nei kada nors anksčiau ir pradeda konkuruoti su investiciniais fondais. Nepaisant to, Europa teisiniu reguliavimu sparčiai atsilieka nuo JAV įstatyminės bazės. Nors fondų daugėja ir jų turtas didėja, tačiau tai vis dar beveik 10 kartų mažesnė rinka nei JAV. Šių aktualijų fone, darbe bus aiškinamasi, ar ES įstatyminė bazė užtikrina tinkamą biržoje prekiaujamų fondų investuotojų teisių apsaugą. Pirmoje dalyje bus apžvelgti investiciniai fondai ir jų evoliucija iki biržoje prekiaujamų fondų. Taip pat biržoje prekiaujamo fondo samprata, tipologija bei veiklos modelis. Išskirti šių dviejų fondų esminiai skirtumai. Antroje dalyje didžiausias dėmesys bus skiriamas ES finansų rinkų įstatymų apžvalgai bei tobulintiniems dalykams. Trečioje dalyje dėmesys bus skiriamas biržoje prekiaujamų fondų informacijos atskleidimui bei kaip informacijos atskleidimas koreliuoja su investuotojų teisių apsauga. Bus nustatyti tobulintini dalykai, apžvelgtos gerosios praktikos, pasiūlyti sprendimai. Šiame skyriuje bus analizuojama investicinių įmonių pareiga informuoti neprofesionaliuosius investuotojus paruošiant pagrindinės informacijos dokumentą. Nustatytos šio reglamento atsiradimo priežastys, analizuota teismų praktika ir išanalizuota ES neprofesionaliųjų investuotojų problema norint įsigyti JAV biržoje prekiaujamus fondus.Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are market-driven innovations within the field of collective investments. ETFs development are very intensive in recent years. ETFs assets rised to 4 trillion dollars in 2019. European financial market has yet to reach it’s first trillion, but ETFs are already managing more than 15% of all financial market assets in Europe. In this case, it‘s normal for European Union to pay increasing attention to this financial product and investors protection. European Union, in attempt to increase investors protection, has already made changes to MIFID I directive and adopted a new, MIFID II directive. Also European Union added new MIFIR regulation . MIFIR is a set of rules that is being created alongside MIFID II directive. These two laws play an important role in protecting ETFs investors rights. Apart from these laws, ETFs investors rights are being protected by UCITS directive, new Prospectus regulation and very important KIID regulation. The study conducted in this work showed, that despite legislature’s aim to protect ETFs investors, KIID regulation made more harm to investors in EU than it provided benefits. Despite of what has been done, the legislator has many places to improve. MIFIR and MIFID are still far from perfect. A study of this work showed that in many places of these laws there was not adopted good practices from ETFs giants USA, to better protect European investors rights. The tasks raised in this work were: to define exchange-traded fund units and distinguish their types; to analyze how ETFs are regulated; to analyze protection of ETFs investors; to analyze the problems faced by EU non-professional investors in purchasing ETF units issued outside the EU; to determine whether the interests of investors in ETFs are adequately protected; to identify regulatory best practices between EU and other jurisdictions; to identify regulatory gaps and propose solutions. Considering about rapidly increasing number of investors in ETFs, in this study was decided to analyze legal acts of EU and Lithuania, also scholarly literature and judicial practices to understand, how some of these legal acts protect investors. In this case, the raised hypothesis of this work is: EU regulation ensure appropriate protection of exchange-traded funds investors rights. The first section of this paper will analyze mutual funds evolution and how it emerged to ETFs. The first section will also present ETFs legal structure, the operating model and typology. It is important to differentiate synthetic and physical ETFs. Physical ETFs are made of securities, while synthetic are made of derivatives. It’s important to find out others ETFs typologies. Also this section will separate main differences between mutual funds and ETFs. Investor rights in mutual funds and exchange traded funds are different. The managers of both of these funds will manage the portfolios of securities, but this will not give the unit-holders the same selling opportunities. ETF units are securities and their model is based on exchange trading, just like equities. Mutual funds units are not traded on a stock exchange. They can only be redeemed at the end of the day when there is a clear net asset value of the mutual fund units. The second section will look at the differences between EU and USA regulation. Trading venues and the concept of EU ETF will also be analyzed in this section. Then there will be analyzed the law's exemptions from the prospectus requirement and how it affects investor protection, as well as other aspects of the EU regulation reducing investor protection. Also in second section will be revealed good practices from the US requiring to disclosure ETFs portfolios of securities on a daily basis, independently of the exchange. The assets of the fund must also be distinguished from those of the collective investment undertaking it manages. There is still no common position in Europe between financial supervisors and the legislature on the disclosure of a securities portfolio of ETFs at the end of each business day. Such initiatives are undertaken by individual entities, such as the Central Bank of Ireland, under whose supervision operating funds must disclose securities portfolios at the end of each stock exchange day. The final section of this paper will focus on the importance of the information disclosure. Investors protection is raised by the requirements to ETFs to publish Key Information Document (KID). Also this requirements blocks unprofessionals investors access to biggest US ETFs. The causes of this document will be reviewed, as well as judicial practices. Legislature aim to increase investor protection by ordering ETFs to disclosure pre-trades and post-trades volumes and prices public is a good move. But not accessible in practice because databases are hard to access. The proposal would be to create a centralized database. Investor protection is provided by a specialized prospectus guided by ESMA. But there are still a lot of problems with that there is not needed to disclosure financial assets portfolio daily in EU.Teisės fakulteta