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Herbert Smith has hired James MacArthur as a partner in its private equity practice in London.

Hong Kong’s stock exchange is divided on whether disclosure of price sensitive information should be backed by criminal sanctions

The Turkish government plans to make a number of changes to the banking legislation, particularly with regard to outsourcing services and banking secrecy. While previous attempts have failed, this time the government may actually succeed. The Draft Law Amending the Banking Law (Draft Law) and the Draft Law on Trade Secrets, Banking Secrets and Customer Secrets (Draft Secrecy Law) have finally made their way to the Justice Committee of the Turkish Parliament, which – though not the final stage – is an important step.

Similar to commercial registers in other countries of the EU, the Romanian Trade Register is an entity handling the incorporation and authorisation of new companies, the changes in a company's statutory structure and the formalities meant to ensure legal publicity towards third parties. The Trade Register is under the authority of the Ministry of Justice.

The financial crisis poses many threats to investors. On the other hand, it offers opportunities for those that wish to acquire companies. In the past few years, investors have acquired a taste for such predatory activities to be structured in the form of a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (a Spac), also known as a blank cheque company. A Spac is an entity through which shares and warrants are offered to the public (through an IPO), at a time when it is only an empty shell except for management. The funds received through the IPO are held in escrow until the Spac finds an appropriate target to acquire, usually within a 12-24 month period. The troubled economic times create an ideal climate for Spacs in search of buying opportunities.

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon proposed a set of major political reforms in a legislative package that was delivered to the Mexican Congress on December 15 2009. The proposed changes – perhaps the most important political reform initiative in decades – include run-off elections for future presidential contests and consecutive re-election for several officials and federal legislators.

The Mexican government has taken a number of steps to modernise the procurement by public entities. In past briefs, we informed of the amendments to the Law for Government Acquisitions, Leases and Services (Ley de Adquisiciones, Arrendamientos y Servicios del Sector Publico or the Acquisitions Law) and the Public Works and Related Services Law (Ley de Obras Públicas y Servicios Relacionados con las Mismas, the Public Works Law), which grant enhanced flexibility to procurement by the Mexican government. In addition to these amendments, the Regulations to the Petroleos Mexicanos Law (Reglamento de la Ley de Petroleos Mexicanos, the regulations) were enacted to contribute to the modernisation effort. This is because it relates specifically to the recent amendments to the legal regime governing the hydrocarbons sector in Mexico.

It has been nearly a century since the establishment of the Japanese Civil Code, but recently interest in comprehensive amendments to it has steadily increased. Thus, in the September 2009 issue we reported on the publication on March 31 2009 of The Policy Underlying a Proposed Amendment of the Claims Law (the Report) prepared by the Study Committee on the Amendment to the Civil Claims Law. In this article, we discuss three topics addressed in the Report which have received considerable attention: (i) default by a party to a contract (obligor), (ii) cancellation of a contract, and (iii) damage awards for default claims.

On August 3 2009 the Minister of Economy and Finance, Associazione Bancaria Italiana (ABI) and the major Italian associations of enterprises published a common notice to the Italian banking system fixing the general terms for a principal payment holiday (PPH) in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) leaving open to the ABI's members the decision of allowing their clients to participate to the principal payment holiday.

Costa Rica is rushing through a reform to its bank secrecy regulations in order to avoid being classified as a tax haven by the OECD. It is grey-listed at the moment, pending government action. The reform on bank secrecy needs to be enacted during the first quarter of 2010. The Ministry of Finance is thus submitting a bill to Congress amending and clarifying local provisions on bank secrecy. This central American country does not have stand-alone legislation on bank secrecy, but rather a dispersed set of banking, tax and commercial provisions dealing with privacy. Costa Rica has endorsed OECD standards of transparency, and has also assumed the obligation to sign at least 12 tax-information exchange agreements in order to improve its international tax cooperation regime.