Search results for

Jaime de la Torre Viscasillas Law 9/2012 on the restructuring and resolution of credit entities was approved on November 14 2012. The law was approved based on Royal Decree-Law 24/2012, on the restructuring and resolution of credit entities, which implemented commitments of the Spanish government assumed in its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreed with the international authorities on July 20 2011. The MOU established, among others, that real estate-related assets of banks that require state aid must be transferred to an asset management company. For this purpose, in December 2012, an asset management company named Sociedad de Gestión de Activos Procedentes de la Reestructuración Bancaria (AMC or Sareb) was incorporated. The AMC, through the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB), had a public participation lower than 50%. The purpose of this company is the tenancy, management, acquisition and transfer of so-called troubled assets. It is also authorised to issue obligations or other debt instruments (with no limits on the amounts).

Some key developments for sukuk finance in 2012 have set the stage for the year ahead

KKR's $200 million investment into Masan Consumer highlights private equity's renewed interest in Vietnam

Patricia Aracely Solórzano Flores The use of ATMs (automatic teller machines) has become an important part of our lives; their popularity relies on the fact that they allow card holders to have quick and easy access to cash whenever they need it, thus avoiding the risk of getting robbed or losing money. However, due to technological advances, the security provided by ATMs is becoming outdated. Yet the use of security measures to protect users from being victims of crime is compulsory. Based on this necessity, and on the increasing number of complaints received at the Financial User Protection Office from ATM users, on December 6 2012 the Honduran Banking and Insurances National Commission issued the Safety Standards for Operating ATMs (Safety Standards). This represents the general trend of financial regulation in Honduras, where the user has become the central figure. Before the Safety Standards, card issuers were only required to implement proper measures to identify the card holder, but there were no rules regulating physical safety at ATMs. Today, according to the Safety Standards, ATM owners must comply with security guidelines, such as (i) employ mechanisms that guarantee the privacy of the transactions made in them, so that the information used is not available to third parties; (ii) take appropriate security measures in the places where ATMs are installed; video cameras must have good resolution for recording and storing images and movements of the events that occur at ATMs, and should allow the identification of the ATM user; (iii) external ATMs must be installed in an enclosure, the access door must have an internal mechanical locking device, to prevent third party access into the enclosure when the client or user is using the ATM, or if it is not in an enclosure then it must have physical security (a security guard) during public opening hours, or when the use of the ATM requires so.

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.

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.

The latest corporate law changes are too prescriptive

Stronger mezz rights have passed the syndication test

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

Russia's biggest ever public-private partnership (PPP) has closed, setting important precedents for structuring projects involving business and governments in the region.