The Cayman Fund Focus 2010 conference hosted by Campbells on 8 October at the Ritz Carlton will provide attendees with the latest information on regulatory changes and how these will affect the hedge fund industry in Cayman and abroad.

Campbells Managing Partner Alistair Campbell anticipates that the key issues at the conference under the theme “Same Game but New Rules?” are going to be the consequences of the EU Alternative Investment Fund Manager Directive.

There has been some speculation recently from AIMA that some of the language of the Directive may be toned down, which could lead to a good compromise, but this is not certain, Campbell pointed out.

“We will hear from Donnacha O’Connor [a partner with Euston Dillon in Dublin] what is going on. We are also going to hear from Mitch Nichter, a  partner from Haul Hastings in San Francisco, who will be talking about the US view of the EU Directive, because a lot of the investment managers are based in New York.”

“Tim Geithner has been writing to the EU about this,” he added. “So that is going to be some interesting discussion from a Cayman perspective. Will it really impact Cayman? What are the various worst case, best case scenarios going to be? And what is the US perspective on that.”

New legislation that is going to be proposed in the Cayman Islands will also be a topic at the one-day conference with both CIMA’s Managing Director Cindy Scotland, as a key-note speaker, and Yolanda McCoy, the authority’s head of investment and securities, reporting on the latest regulatory plans.

“It will be interesting to hear from Cindy Scotland who announced recently that the number of new funds is going up, which is good news,” said Walters. “So we hope we can hear from her with some up to date figures.”

Further sessions will focus on issues affecting investors, featuring Scott F. Elphinstone from Five Continents Financial Limited, Ethan Johnson from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP and Campbells’ Ian Dillon. Service providers Boris Onefater of Constellation Investment Consulting Corp, dms Organization’s David Bree and Gordon Mattison of SGGG Fund Services will debate how to provide effective services with robust internal controls
and minimum risk.

“Then there is going to be some interesting discussion about a number of recent cases down here, dealing with different aspects of fund problems,” Walters said, naming shareholder rights issues, redemption rights and the general relationship between funds, service providers and investors as examples. These relationships are strained and stressed within the legal environment, so I think this is always good fodder for discussion.” These latest restructuring, liquidation and litigation issues will be debated by panellists Brian Pfeiffer of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, Stu Sybersma of Deloitte and Campbells’ Guy Manning.

“In the past the conference always had a very good feedback,” said Walters, something Campbells still aims to improve on.

“We always ask for comments and receive them, and on the whole we try to bear those in mind when we set the programmes and pick the speakers as well as the format.”