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Chancellor George Osborne's pledge to 'electrify the ring-fence' for the UK's biggest banks has attracted widespread media attention, as well as trenchant opposition from some quarters. During his address, a single-minded Osborne warned that banks would be broken up entirely if they fail to comply with the new agenda and firewall high street operations from their riskier investment divisions.

Reg AB II and clashes over CEO certification were highlights from ASF 2013

Mian Muhammad Nazir The United Arab Emirates, particularly Dubai, has always been amongst the few most comfortable places for Islamic finance. It has received significant support from the Government, regulators and stakeholders. Yet despite the popularity of Islamic finance in the UAE, and UAE's contribution in the growth of Islamic finance, the legal and regulatory infrastructure has always needed further improvement in order to keep pace with the challenges of time and to further strengthen the confidence of the stakeholders in the Islamic finance industry. As expected, the latest initiatives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, have once again offered a remarkable degree of comfort to the industry. The initiatives will lead the UAE, and particularly Dubai, through a series of practical steps, which will pave the way for the growth of Islamic finance on a solid foundation. The proposed initiatives will entail industry specific and robust legal, judicial and regulatory reforms, which will provide a level playing field for the Islamic finance industry, to which it has been aspiring since its inception. What Islamic finance industry would certainly welcome is the review of Federal Law number 6 of 1985 regarding Islamic banks, financial institutions and investment companies.

A leading general counsel reveals his strategies for staying on top in a challenging market

Mansoor Jamal Malik and William Barrie of Al Busaidy Mansoor Jamal describe Oman’s ambitious infrastructure plans and innovative project finance options

The latest corporate law changes are too prescriptive

In the United States, we've long distinguished between the requirements applicable to private offerings and those applicable to public offerings. In fact, there were clearly delineated lines that couldn't be crossed in the context of a private offering. A private offering was understood to be an offering made principally to institutional or sophisticated investors that had a pre-existing relationship with the issuer or the financial intermediary, and had access to financial or other information about the issuer. General solicitation was strictly forbidden, and the securities sold in unregistered offerings were subject to transfers restrictions such that they were not fungible with the issuer's securities trading on an exchange. Over time, the lines between private and public have become increasingly blurred. The rising popularity of hybrid offering techniques, like Pipe transactions, which have as their objective making privately offered securities more liquid and less private in character have contributed to this. Also, the holding period for restricted securities to become freely transferable has been shortened, and private secondary trading markets are becoming more important venues. Of course, the biggest changes to our first principles of securities regulation have been brought about by the JOBS Act, which permits general solicitation to be used, and permits social media and the internet to become capital raising tools for exempt offerings. So, it is easy to see that private offerings are becoming more, as it were, public.

Stronger mezz rights have passed the syndication test

If regulators are worried about over-encumbered bank assets, they must look beyond just covered bonds

The shortlist for IFLR’s 2013 Europe awards has been announced