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Asia’s debt capital markets have long lived in the shadow of the region’s buoyant listing markets. Not for much longer

HK’s new sponsor rules could lock up funding as well as sponsors That Hong Kong wants to protect the reputations of its H-share and A-share companies is understandable – particularly following the issues that have troubled US-listed ChinaCos. But while listing location is rarely chosen on the basis of a regulator's vetting process, Hong Kong's new sponsor regulations may have made initial public offerings (IPOs) prohibitively expensive. Hong Kong's sponsor regulations have left small firms with few options. The rules might have noble underpinnings, but their provisions are heavy-handed. The risk sponsors take means that we are likely to see far fewer small IPOs getting done in Hong Kong.

Ten years after its creation, has Hong Kong’s Securities & Futures Appeals Tribunal proved an effective review panel?

Shunsuke Minowa As a result of continuing low domestic demand for funding, the amount of syndicated loans made in Japan has remained stagnant, at a level of approximately ¥25 trillion ($281 billion) per year, since 2006. Certain trends have begun to appear in the Japanese market in response to this situation. Before the amendments to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law (FIEL) in 2012, despite the fact that syndicated loans arranged by financial institutions are generally not regulated under the FIEL, loan receivables from educational institutions are an exception to this general principle and regulated under the FIEL as 'deemed securities'. Accordingly, syndicated loans provided to these institutions have traditionally been considered as regulated under the FIEL and the arrangement of such loans considered a so-called Type II Financial Instruments Business, which carries with it many restrictions under the FIEL. Accordingly, even in situations where all of the lenders in the syndicate were sophisticated financial institutions the applicable FIEL protections were nonetheless applied, hindering the supply of financing and flow of funds in the market.

Lord Peter Goldsmith The former UK Attorney General has called for a more flexible form of deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) than that proposed by the UK government. For DPAs to be an effective enforcement tool, prosecutors must be able to offer agreeable terms and incentivise companies to self-report, Lord Peter Goldsmith told IFLR. This could be difficult under the stringent approval process the government proposes to introduce as early as next year.

Erik Lind On January 1 2013, the Peruvian Controlled Foreign Corporation Regime (Regime) entered into force. The Regime aims to prevent the deferral of Peruvian Income Tax (IT) on foreign source passive income – such as dividends, interest, royalties, and capital gains – earned by Peruvian Tax Residents (PTR) through the use of Controlled Foreign Corporations (CFC) located in low tax jurisdictions. A foreign entity qualifies as a CFC if, by the end of the Peruvian tax year (December 31) it satisfies the following criteria:

The government of Mongolia's recent Regulation S/Rule 144A debt offering marked the first time the country has tapped the sovereign bond market.

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 was recently enacted in the Philippines in line with the State's recognition of the vital role of information and communications industries in the nation's overall social and economic development and the need to protect and safeguard computer systems and networks from all forms of misuse, abuse and illegal access.

A new law which focuses on the processing of an individual's personal information was approved by the President of the Philippines on August 15 2012. The Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No 10173, full title An Act Protecting Individual Personal Information in Information and Communications Systems in the Government and the Private Sector, Creating for this Purpose A National Privacy Commission, and for Other Purposes) took effect on September 8 2012. A violation of this law is a crime, and penalties imposed include fines and imprisonment (see Chapter VIII of the Act).

Bank of America's $726 million loan to the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina reflects a radical shift by Brazil's states toward major international lenders.