Luxembourg financial regulator CSSF fines investment firm Funds Avenue €700,000, just a year after predecessor company Fuchs & Associés Finance had its licence revoked by the CSSF

Luxembourg investment firm Funds Avenue has been fined almost €700,000 by the country’s financial regulator for compliance gaps in its governance, just a year after its former subsidiary had its licence to operate revoked.

The firm was fined €696,547 by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in December 2024 following an inspection carried out between June and September 2023, the regulator said in a statement published on its website on Thursday.

Funds Avenue changed its name from Fuchs Asset Management in September 2023 and has since changed its ownership, the company told the Luxembourg Times. Fuchs Asset Management was previously the subsidiary company of Fuchs & Associés Finance, which was placed into liquidation in July 2023, a week after it was stripped of its licence to operate by the CSSF.

Fuchs & Associés Finance was fined a total of more than €2.2 million in three separate sanctions between 2022 and 2024 related to a host of breaches, including market abuse and gaps in compliance with anti-money laundering rules.

In the fine issued to Funds Avenue, the CSSF said there had been a series of breaches, including violations in “general principles surrounding organisational requirements”, not taking sufficient steps to “avoid conflicts of interest” and failings in “conducting its business activities in the best interest of the managed UCITS”.

There had been a number of questionable expenses claims identified, the financial regulator concluded in its report.

“The CSSF identified several invoices/expenses paid by the manager for services/benefits that are not related to its business activity, including private jet expenses for personal trips of an Executive Committee member and its close family, as well as costs related to the maintenance of private vehicles,” the CSSF said.

In a statement to the Luxembourg Times, Funds Avenue said that the “fine itself has been fully paid and has no impact on the financial stability and ongoing activity of the company”, adding that it now had “a robust governance framework in place and a new ownership structure including Trustmoore alongside the management team”.

“The company emphasises that the situations mentioned by the CSSF refer to elements observed in the past and that all corrective measures and procedures are in place in order to fulfill its professional obligations,” it said.

Fuchs & Associés, a family group specialising in wealth and fund management, life insurance and trading for private and institutional clients, previously employed more than 150 staff across Luxembourg, Brussels and Geneva.

It was founded in 2000 by Jean Fuchs, a former member of the CSSF’s board of directors.

(This article was updated at 19:30 on 30 January 2025 with a statement from Funds Avenue, and to clarify that Fuchs Asset Management was previously the subsidiary company of Fuchs & Associés Finance)