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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.

A lawyer acting on the Interbolsa liquidation speaks exclusively to IFLR about its impact on investors and its legacy for financial regulation

Freddy Karyadi Oene Marseille Bank Indonesia (BI) has recently issued the new Regulation number 14/24/PBI/2012 (the Regulation) to update its previous regulation, BI Regulation number 8/16/PBI/2006 (the 2006 Regulation) on single ownership of Indonesian banks. It came into effect on December 26 2012. The issuance of the Regulation revokes: the provisions in the 2006 Regulation; and the provisions in Article 2 paragraph 2a and e, Article 3, and Article 7 of BI Regulation number 8/17/PBI 2006 regarding incentives for the purposes of banking consolidation as amended by BI Regulation number 9/12/PBI/2007. The regulation aims to improve the competitiveness of the Indonesian banking system both on regional and global levels of economic development, by reducing the number of Indonesian banks via consolidation. This policy is also commonly known as the single presence policy, which is applicable to the banks' controlling shareholders that either hold at least 25% shares and have voting rights or have a direct or indirect control of the bank even with less than 25% of the shares.

Takashi Itokawa On February 18 2013, the Densai-net claim settlement system came online. Densai-net is a settlement service system offered by densai.net Co, for electronically recorded claims. densai.net Co is a company established by the Japanese Bankers Associations, which is comprised of those banks, bank holding companies and bankers associations active in Japan, and licensed to record and maintain electronic claims. Since almost all of financial institutions in Japan that have corporate banking operations participate in Densai-net, users of this claim settlement system are able to access not only the member banks of Japanese Bankers Associations, but also credit associations (Shinkin banks), credit unions (Shinyo Kinko) and the Central Bank for Commercial and Industrial Associations (Shoko Chukin Bank), each of which have long played central roles in financing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Japan. The legislation establishing Densai-net illustrates its two main objectives: improving Japan's business infrastructure; and, facilitating financing for SMEs. It is hoped that Densai-net will allow SMEs to raise capital in a more efficient manner and that this, in turn, will encourage economic growth. The applicable laws and regulations were designed to allow for universal electronic account settlement services, to replace traditional note settlement methods, which entail the endorsement requirements for the transfer of notes and discounting. In addition, the applicable laws and regulations were designed for global electronic settlement services to provide lenders with a prompt and reliable method to collect claims. Further, it is anticipated that the introduction of Densai-net will encourage the factoring of accounts receivables and further increase the amount of capital in the market for lending purposes.

Daniel Futej Daniel Grigel The Government of the Slovak Republic has decided to institute a unitary health insurance system; this comes in the wake of its approval on 31 October 2012 of the Project for Instituting a Unitary Health Insurance System (the Project). In Slovakia today, there are two private health insurance companies operating in the public health insurance system to be affected by the envisaged system change, along with one other state health insurance company. The Project compares the various options for instituting a unitary health insurance system, and describes the procedure for the voluntary buyout of the shares of private health insurance companies, as well as procedures in the event of expropriation of those shares. These will be laid down in detail in the accompanying act, which is expected to come into force on May 1 2013.

The latest corporate law changes are too prescriptive

Three banks have now settled claims over falsifying Libor rates. Here is a barrister’s view on the charges prosecutors could pursue

A Greek company has issued high-yield bonds without exposing investors to a Grexit or broader currency risks. Here’s how

Carlos Fradique Méndez Lucas Moreno In late December 2012 Colombian Congress passed Law 1607, which introduces significant changes to Colombian tax law, with some provisions particularly relevant to the structuring of inbound and outbound financial transactions. This article, very briefly and generally describes some of the most salient features of the tax reform, with the proviso that the specific details and implementing rules and regulations are to be taken into account in specific cases given the complexity of the subject matters. The tax reform generally reduces the withholding tax rate applicable to gross payments to foreign portfolio investors from 33% to 14%. The 14% rate is generally applicable, unless the foreign investor is located in a tax haven (as indicated in a blacklist to be published by the Colombian Government), in which case the applicable withholding rate would be 25%. While dividends are not typically subject to double taxation, the 14% reduced withholding rate would not apply (and a 25% withholding rate would be applicable instead) to dividend payments subject to taxes in Colombia at the shareholder level.