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Francisca Perez, Morales Besa & Abogados After several years of negotiations, last February 4 the governments of the US and Chile signed a double taxation treaty with respect to taxes on income and capital. This convention will integrate the Chilean treaty network of over 20 agreements as of this date.

Indonesia’s voluntary pre-merger regime failed and notification is now mandatory. But the new rules could be counter-productive

In the wake of financial market turmoil, Austrian banks have rediscovered the appeal of participation capital – an Austrian law-specific instrument for increasing the core tier one ratio and enhancing risk-bearing capacity. Almost all major Austrian credit institutions (except Unicredit) have issued participation capital over the last year, drawing on the state's assistance under the Austrian financial market stability scheme (because participation capital was either in whole or in large part subscribed by the state as investor).

Opinion amongst lawyers is divided on how far law firms and accountants should go when looking beyond standard legal opinions

US law firm of the year

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has released proposed revisions relating to the registration and ongoing disclosure obligations for mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and asset-backed securities (ABS). The 700-plus pages describe substantial changes to the current framework. For example, in order to be eligible to use a short-form registration statement in connection with ABS, an issuer must retain a portion of each tranche of offered securities, for the term of such securities.

The International Service Law (ISL) regulates the establishment and operation of service parks and service centres, as well as the responsibilities of owners of companies that provide those services. It was enacted in El Salvador as a solution to many services provider companies that were operating under the Industrial and Commercial Free Trade Zone Law (FTZL), which was not originally created for that purpose. The ISL has similar benefits and fiscal incentives as the FTZL, but is tailored for these kinds of companies.

On March 10 2010, the Korean government submitted a revised bill of the Commercial Code to the National Assembly that introduces poison pills in Korea. It does so by granting existing shareholders certain rights to acquire new securities. This so-called New Share Acquisition Option system allows the poison pill in Korea to be used as a defensive measure against hostile takeover threats. It is not a general allowance of warrants that can be used as a financing method, which is not allowed under Korean law. The main aim of the Korean government in introducing the poison pill in Korea is to foster fair competition between potential acquirors and targets by striking a fair balance between offensive and defensive measures available in the Korean market for corporate control. The hope is that this will prevent waste of corporate resources devoted to hostile takeover defenses (such as greenmail). These resources should instead be devoted to more productive uses such as investment and research and development spending.

Iulia Bunescu Increased awareness and concern on the effects of global warming has prompted society to find ways to minimise the effects of gas emissions on climate changes.

Mafalda Monteiro The Portuguese legal framework on payment services and payment institutions' licensing requirements was approved by way of Decree-Law No. 317/2009, on October 30 2009, which transposed into Portuguese law Directive No. 2007/64/CE, of the European Parliament and of the Council on November 13 2007, on payment services in the internal market.