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New legislation makes migration attractive

For borrowers to read and avoid

Syndicates should challenge disaster provisions

It is difficult to describe the past few months without using vivid terms. We are experiencing a worldwide financial panic that was spawned in the US sub-prime mortgage-backed securities market and spread due to a lack of market confidence in the valuation of those, and subsequently other, residential mortgage-backed securities, structured securities and collateralised debt obligations. This problem has been exacerbated by the proliferation of investments in structured instruments that were not fully understood by some of the investors and by the implementation of mark-to-market (fair value) accounting (FAS 157), which treats paper losses as though they were real losses.

Cyprus enacted the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law (Law 144(I)/2007), which implements Mifid, almost a year ago. An aspect of the Investment Services Law that has received surprisingly little attention to date is the ability to establish multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) for the first time in Cyprus.

The rules of financial and swap transactions to be entered into by Italian regions and local authorities are now under construction by the Italian legislator.

No time limit on the Bank of England's funds

More and better exemptions from the SEC, but no-action letters may not disappear

Change attitudes, rather than reform the law

Latham & Watkins advised eBay on its $945 million acquisition of Bill Me Later, the online credit company. The deal contains $820 million in cash assets and approximately $125 million in outstanding options. It is expected to be completed by the end of the year, once it clears various closing conditions. Bill Me Later offers transactional credit to consumers at the point of sale through self-underwriting techniques and credit models.