The Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority published FMA Practice 2024, an anonymised digest of supervisory decisions and related rulings by the FMA Board of Appeal, the Administrative Court and the EFTA Court for the 2024 supervisory period, intended to show how the FMA applies and interprets supervisory law. The publication also summarises administrative and administrative criminal proceedings and sanctions imposed during 2024. One featured case concerns the proposed acquisition of all shares in a Liechtenstein insurance undertaking. The FMA objected because the acquirer did not meet legal requirements, including suitability, and the Board of Appeal upheld the objection after seeking an expert opinion from the EFTA Court on the interpretation of “suitability” and “reliability” and the binding effect of European Supervisory Authorities guidelines, concluding that EEA-derived terms must be interpreted consistently with EEA law and that a qualifying holding acquirer must show professional competence as well as personal integrity. Another case addresses trustworthiness as a licensing condition for a financial intermediary: after an earlier Austrian conviction was found not sufficiently connected to the intermediary’s professional activity, a subsequent Liechtenstein conviction for attempted breach of trust and money laundering led the FMA to deem the intermediary no longer trustworthy, and the Board of Appeal confirmed that the additional facts and offences precluded trustworthiness. The FMA reports 34 administrative or administrative criminal proceedings ongoing at end-2024, 84 proceedings concluded, 18 legally binding fines totalling CHF 971,500, and 20 warnings.

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