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Patrick McGurn Shareholder rights plans are often understood as anything but. By giving shareholders the opportunity to dilute a potential owner's stake in a company, they have effectively deterred any and all hostile acquisitions of companies that have adopted them.

Phillip Fletcher Following the 1980s debt crisis, the IMF and World Bank endorsed the Brady Plan, which called for debt reduction by way of risk-compensated forgiveness. Debtor countries' loans were restructured into a menu of publicly-traded US dollar-denominated Brady Bonds collateralised with US Treasury securities. The first Brady Bond, completed in 1990 for Mexico, became the archetype for the other Brady deals that followed over the next seven years.

Daniel Goelzer The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) sprang into existence with a clear mandate. The Enron debacle had so tarnished the profession's reputation that independent oversight was crucial to restoring a respected auditing profession. But the PCAOB did not just have a moral mandate. It had a strong legal one too, with a unanimous vote for Sarbanes-Oxley in the Senate and only a couple of dissenting voices in the House of Representatives.

The foreign owners of foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs, excluding wholly foreign-owned companies for the purpose of this article) are eager to reap the advantages of the increasingly prosperous capital markets in China to raise funds in renminbi and enhance their exposure to the Chinese market. Quite a number of these foreign investors struggle with the idea that the capital market in China dislikes so-called foreign gold miners, and thus FIEs are hindered from listing on the A-share market. This opinion may be quite wrong.

Infrastructure is one of the main areas related to the project finance market which the Costa Rican government is developing. Recent projects include the San José-Caldera road concession, the investment management contract for airport services at Juan Santamaria International Airport, the concession for the new passenger terminal building at Liberia International Airport, and the concession for the construction of a grain wharf at the Port of Caldera, with total investments in excess of $450 million.

Freddy Karyadi Oene Marseille The Indonesian government has issued a revision of the mining and coal mining business services regulation through Regulation of the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources No. 24 of 2012 (which amends Regulation 28/2009). The revision provides a list of sub-fields of mining business service (Usaha Jasa Pertambangan), such as the field of general survey which may have sub-fields consisting of reconnaissance, remote sensing, and prospecting. There is also a detailed list of non-core mining business licences (Usaha Jasa Pertambangan Non Inti), such as civil construction and health.

Following the implementation in Italy of Directive EU/7/2011 of the European Parliament and the European Council of February 16 2011, the Italian government has recently approved a legislative decree which introduces substantial changes to Legislative Decree No. 231/2002 relating to late payments in commercial transactions.

Daniel Futej Daniel Grigel Big changes to the Slovak Commercial Code came into force on October 1 2012. These changes toughen the criteria for incorporating limited liability companies and for transferring majority ownership interest in those companies. Further changes seek to toughen the criteria for voluntary value added tax registration for certain defined high-risk entities. Under the new rules, a limited liability company may not be incorporated by a person who has tax arrears exceeding €170 ($217). Tax arrears means any amount owed on any type of tax which has become overdue (income tax, value added tax, excise tax or local tax). This change is intended to prevent natural and legal persons from incorporating limited liability companies when those persons have incurred that tax obligation and have failed to pay the tax owed by the time they are attempting to incorporate a limited liability company. All persons intending to incorporate a limited liability company will first have to prove they have no tax arrears by requesting the tax authority's written consent to the registration of a limited liability company in the Commercial Registry. Provided there are no tax arrears, the tax authority will provide consent within three business days of lodging the request.

Issuers must be a little less reserved Regulation S high-yield issuers in Asia should disclose information to a rule 144A standard and pay close attention to their email trails, lawyers have warned. Market participants predict regulation S high-yield deals to become more common over the next year. But it is expected that deals under rule 144A would eventually become the market standard.

The effect of reeling in speculators?