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Mexico is on the cusp of a regulatory overhaul that will touch every corner of its financial services sector. Three of the country’s senior regulatory officials dissect the upcoming reforms

The Mexican government has started the long and uncertain process of permitting foreign investment in its state-run oil sector. Despite significant public pushback, local lawyers believe change is inevitable

This instalment of Leveraged Finance Quarterly looks at the similarities and distinctions between typical features of first out revolving credit facilities in the US, and super senior revolving credit facilities in Europe

Recent judgments have brought to the fore differences between how UK and US courts approach piercing the veil of incorporation

How will the EU’s new recovery and resolution tools and related reforms work together in practice? And would such measures have avoided the problems that emerged during this year’s Cypriot banking crisis?

Securitisation would greatly assist China in its efforts to deleverage its economy. Here’s what’s holding the asset class back

Rodrigo de Campos Vieira In a previous article published in this magazine, the author commented on Brazil's unique opportunity to develop the mechanisms for early stage, smaller and also more established medium-sized companies to access the funds they need to grow their business through the equity capital markets. The previous article discussed a project conducted by investment banks, law firms, civil entities, associations and auditors to be presented to the government with alternatives to unlock the growth of Bovespa Mais, the only access stock market in Brazil.

Elias Neocleous The Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Cyprus have jointly announced that the recapitalisation of Bank of Cyprus (BoC) is now complete. Forty seven and a half percent of so-called uninsured deposits (that is, the excess of deposits over €100,000 ($132,600)) as at the time the bank was placed under the resolution regime have been converted into shares, giving a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio estimated at approximately 12%, well above the required minimum. This is the final stage of the bank's resolution process and, according to the announcement, there will be no further measures under the Resolution Law. Early in the resolution process, 37.5% of the excess of customer deposits over €100,000 was earmarked for conversion into shares and a further 22.5% was withheld as a contingency reserve pending an assessment of the bank's financial position and capital needs. Now that the assessment has been completed, a further five percent of the uninsured balance will be returned to depositors. The remainder, after deduction of the amount converted to shares, will be divided into three equal separate time deposits of six, nine and 12 months, respectively, carrying an enhanced rate of interest. On maturity BoC will have the option to renew the time deposits once for the same duration.

Rodrigo Taboada By decision of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental institution, and the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering in South America (GAFISUD), in June 2001 Nicaragua became part of the so-called Grey List on those institutions' prevention system for combating money laundering and terrorist financing. This was due to 'strategic deficiencies'. One of the five reasons Nicaragua presented strategic deficiencies was the absence of a financial intelligence unit. The country has now taken steps to stay off the Grey List, through the passage of a law that creates the Financial Intelligence Unit. This was published in the Official Journal (La Gaceta) on June 22 2012 and became effective in September 2012.

Daniel Futej Patrik Daniska As of May 1 2013, several important changes to the Act on Residence of Aliens came into force in Slovakia including those relating to residence permits for the purpose of business. This applies to the members of statutory bodies of business companies who are not employed, as well as self-employed entrepreneurs. (In Slovakia, a foreigner who is both a member of a statutory body and an employee must apply for temporary residence for the purpose of employment only. This means that employment purpose of stay will prevail over business purpose of stay.)