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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.

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.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the Indian capital markets regulator, has recently amended the Sebi (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2009. The stated purpose of some of these amendments is to introduce so-called reformatory measures to revive the primary capital markets in India. These measures, according to the minutes of the Sebi's board meeting, are to encourage enhanced retail investors' participation, impose a higher standard of accountability on companies and intermediaries, and ensure greater transparency in the initial public offering (IPO) process.

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.

Nicholas Chang Gerald Cheong The Singapore Exchange (SGX) has proposed some significant initiatives to the offer structure relating to initial public offerings (IPOs). In Singapore, the offer structure for an IPO normally comprises a placement tranche and a public subscription tranche. For Mainboard IPOs, the SGX listing rules specify that the shareholding spread and distribution requirement for companies with market capitalisation below S$300 million ($244.9 million) must have a public float of at least 25% to be held by at least 500 shareholders. This number of shareholders includes shareholders from both the public subscription tranche and the placement tranche. This rule provides assurance of fair and orderly trading of shares when listed. There is, however, no requirement for Mainboard listing applications to allocate a minimum proportion of shares to the public subscription tranche as a method of offering.

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.

For those investors following Spanish distressed opportunities, there is much more to the market than the traditional distressed corporate debt and NPL portfolios held by financial institutions.

The effect of reeling in speculators?

Mian Muhammad Nazir From a shariah perspective, it is necessary that any dispute under a shariah-compliant contract must be resolved in accordance with the principles of shariah which govern the relevant shariah-nominate contract. This principle has been reiterated by International Fiqh Academy in its resolution on the subject of governing law for shariah-compliant transactions. Despite the resolution and the importance of the governing law for shariah-compliant transactions, the matter has not received any significant attention from stakeholders. The main reason why the parties are reluctant to choose the principles of shariah as governing law is uncertainty surrounding the recognition of principles of shariah as a system of law by judicial and quasi-judicial authorities and tribunals. Apparently, this indifference accorded to shariah is largely attributable to lack of understanding of the Islamic jurisprudence and its principles. It is often said – indeed it has become a cliché among the legal fraternity – that the principles of shariah are mostly a set of discretionary rules laid down or inferred by a scholar or a school of Islamic jurisprudence based on his or its understanding of Qur'an and Sunnah (the two main sources of Islamic jurisprudence). Surprisingly, this notion has received considerable strength from judgments in a few cases and arbitration proceedings in some jurisdictions. Unfortunately, the Islamic banking industry, which owes its genesis to Islamic jurisprudence, has not made any effort to dispel this misconception.