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Lynette Yeow A typical question from foreign clients wishing to raise funds from certain Malaysian institutions is whether there exists a safe harbour for private offerings of interests in offshore entities to sophisticated investors, which are exempted from Malaysian regulatory approvals.

Christina Papanikolopoulou On July 1 2011 the Greek Parliament passed Law 3986/2011 on Emergency Measures for the Implementation of the Medium-term Fiscal Strategy Framework for the years 2012-2015 (Medium-term Plan). One of the measures introduced by the Law was the establishment of a fund that will undertake the development and exploitation of private law assets owned by the Hellenic Republic and/or state-owned corporations. This fund was set up in the context of the Greek government's efforts to step up privatisations, which it has committed to complete under the emergency lending plan established by the ECB, the Eurozone and the IMF.

The new general counsel of UBS's investment bank, Chul Chung, has certainly hit the ground running.

Leonard Birmingham In relation to private placements, joint ventures or at times public listings, BVI companies are sometimes structured so as to be able to issue what are known as blank-cheque preferred shares. Where a company seeks to attract certain persons as shareholders, those investors will sometimes only invest if the terms of that investment are suitably attractive, meaning a need for flexibility. The company needs to have the ability to give those investors comfort that they will get a preferential position in the equity ranking. Until recently, a BVI company could easily issue such shares pursuant to statutory authority. The situation is no longer so clear.

It takes time to learn how the financial services industry functions, time to learn how to navigate one's own institution and time to gain enough trust with internal clients that they can contextualise and better accept a 'no'.

The Philippines' Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) recently re-issued rules implementing the mandate on public offering under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (Epira). The ERC initially issued rules implementing this requirement in 2005; however, the rules were suspended in 2006 pending the conduct of public hearings.

One of the important purposes of the Pemex law enacted in 2008 was to allow Petróleos Mexicanos (known as Pemex) to implement new contractual schemes for petroleum production which would no longer be subject to the restrictions of the Public Works Law. It took some time from the effectiveness of the reform in November 2008 to the publication in November 2010 of the of the new model contract, known as the Generic Service Contract Specimen for Evaluation, Development and Production of Hidrocarbons.

In the past, it was not infrequent to see on the market issuers established in European Member States acting as pass-through vehicles of Italian unlisted companies providing guarantees to their subsidiaries for the issue of notes. Unlisted Italian companies would, in fact, need to apply a withholding on payments of interest if they would accede directly the markets as issuers of notes.

Liam Carney Robin McDonnell On July 22 2011, the Irish Supreme Court delivered its judgment in what has been described as one of the hardest fought examinerships in recent times. By majority decision, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the High Court, refusing to confirm the proposed scheme of arrangement of the examiner appointed to the McInerney group on the basis that it was unfairly prejudicial to the lenders to the McInerney group.

Freddy Karyadi Oene Marseille On July 14 2011, Indonesia's House of Representative passed a new law that amends Law No 9 of 2006 on the Warehouse Receipt System. The new law amends seven articles of Law 9/2006 and introduces 12 new articles. Through this amendment, the government aims at accommodating business demands regarding warehouse receipts. The new law excludes one sub-paragraph in Article 5, which stated that the value of the goods must be based on the market price when the goods are placed in storage.