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Mario Mizzi

Parliament Building by Renzo Piano in Valletta, Malta
Malta Aligns Investment Laws With EU Prudential Regime Investment Services & Funds

Malta Aligns Investment Laws With EU Prudential Regime

The Maltese legislator’s recent publication of five amending legal notices on 29 July 2025 marks a continuous alignment of the Investment Services Act (Chapter 370 of the Laws of Malta) with the European Union’s prudential regime for investment firms. Each of the five legal notices (L.N.) addresses a discrete lacuna that had emerged once the Investment Firms Regulation (IFR) and Investment Firms Directive (IFD) began to apply across the Union earlier this decade. Legal Notice 152 of 2025 amends Malta’s rules on supervisory consolidation under the IFD, refining the criteria by which the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) is designated as consolidating…
Mario Mizzi
30th July 2025
Highest EU Court in Luxembourg
CJEU preliminary rulings as a path towards further investment law harmonisation Investment Services & FundsLitigation & Dispute Resolution

CJEU preliminary rulings as a path towards further investment law harmonisation

The preliminary reference procedure under Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) constitutes a mechanism by which the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ensures the uniform interpretation and application of Union law across the Member States. In the specific context of EU financial regulation, this procedural instrument assumes a distinctive function: that of enabling organic harmonisation within the internal market. By facilitating a judicial dialogue between national courts and the CJEU, the preliminary ruling mechanism operates as a decentralised yet effective method of aligning national interpretations of key provisions within directives…
Mario Mizzi
14th July 2025
Person using a credit card
Payments Insights #5 – When CASPs Overlap PSPs Banking & FinanceFinTech

Payments Insights #5 – When CASPs Overlap PSPs

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) provides in Article 70(4) that a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) offering payment services related to its crypto activities must either obtain a payment institution authorisation itself or partner with an authorised payment service provider (PSP) under PSD2. This reflects the “dual nature” of certain crypto-assets: notably, MiCA classifies e-money tokens (i.e. stablecoins) as electronic money, meaning they are not only crypto-assets under MiCA but also “funds” under the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). In practice, this dual status raised uncertainty about whether CASPs dealing in stablecoins need a separate PSD2 licence in addition…
Katya Tua and Mario Mizzi
4th July 2025
Tokenisation of Funds
Fintech Insights #11 –
Tokenising Fund Units FinTechInvestment Services & Funds

Fintech Insights #11 –
Tokenising Fund Units

Malta has uniquely positioned itself at the crossroads of EU legislative initiatives of investment funds and digital assets. The island has steadily built a forward-thinking fintech ecosystem whilst at the same time maintained an investment fund framework which is comparable to those with the EU’s largest jurisdictions by assets-under-management (“AUM”).  This makes Malta the ideal EU jurisdiction to set up a tokenised investment fund. In June 2025, the Malta Financial Services Authority (“MFSA”) published a detailed ‘Position Paper on Tokenisation of Fund Units’ (the “Position Paper”), reflecting Malta’s ongoing pioneering approach to digital finance and asset management. The paper emphasises…
Katya Tua and Mario Mizzi
18th June 2025
High rise in Malta
Fintech Insights #10 –
Raising Funds Through Tokenisation FinTech

Fintech Insights #10 –
Raising Funds Through Tokenisation

The EU’s process towards further harmonisation of its Capital Markets Union (“CMU”) provides a timely context for the implementation of tokenisation. The CMU aims to create a single, integrated financial market across the EU, fostering cross-border investments, mobilising citizens’ personal savings and reducing the reliance on bank-driven financing. The implementation of tokenisation within capital markets can help achieve these objectives by enabling frictionless trading and unlocking access to new pools of capital whilst increasing liquidity. As discussed in the previous insight on tokenisation in Malta, tokenisation reimagines asset representation by embedding ownership and legal rights into programmable tokens recorded on…
Mario Mizzi
17th April 2025
Manoel Island
SLPFs: Partnership Funds Without Legal Personality Investment Services & Funds

SLPFs: Partnership Funds Without Legal Personality

The Investment Services Act (Special Limited Partnership Funds) Regulations (“LN 30 (2025)” or “the Regulations”) introduced a new type of structure for investment funds in Malta which will be useful for those who are interested in setting up a vehicle without a separate legal personality. The Regulations provide the framework for the Special Limited Partnership Fund (“SLPF”), a limited partnership without juridical personality, a structure that aligns Malta with several other leading asset-management jurisdictions. The SLPF can only be set-up as an investment vehicle which is notified or licensed by the Malta Financial Service Authority (“MFSA”) as a collective investment…
Mario Mizzi
13th February 2025