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Make sure you're feeling creative before you tackle the new property rights law

A lifetime as an in-house lawyer reveals its own particular lessons, says the legal director

Europe James Black joins White & Case Kate Lamburn leaves Ashurst for McDermott Hugh Verrier, also off to W&C Amjad Hussain has joined Eversheds in Qatar Gabor Molnar leaves Paul Weiss White & Case has hired US capital markets partner James Black. Black joins the firm's Frankfurt office from Linklaters where he worked for three years as an associate on both domestic and international equity and debt transactions, as well as mergers and acquisitions, advising both German and international clients. The move is part of White & Case's expansion of its European capital markets practice. So far this year, the firm has seen the addition of partner Lutz Krämer and local partner Benedikt Gillessen in Frankfurt, as well as partners Andrew Caunt, Andrew Croxford and Carter Brod in London.

Equity Abax launches the first global hedge fund in Hong Kong Abax Global Capital has launched the first globally offered hedge fund in Hong Kong, with investor demand exceeding $1 billion. Sidley Austin represented Abax, with partner Effie Vasilopoulos leading the firm in Hong Kong. It is the first big launch of a new special situations hybrid fund in Hong Kong and is hoped to continue the development of the Asian hedge fund industry. Walkers acted for Abax as the Cayman Islands legal counsel on the deal.

Privatization and PPP work by involving the private sector in fields which were exclusively held by the public sector, such as conditioning of minerals, land passenger transport, transport of goods, telecommunications and others.

Regulation 06-02, introduced onSeptember 24 2006, has not changed the procedure for incorporating a bank or financial institution, but does make changes to applying for approval to open a bank or financial institution, and a banking licence.

The debate over debt pushdown mechanisms in secured financing of listed company acquisitions has been going on in Turkey since the late nineties. With increasing investment by foreign private equity funds, the scope of this debate is broader, and covers the use of a target company's assets for securing the financing of an acquisition. The CMB's approach to this structure is controversial. Recently, it had an unpleasant experience when a private equity fund backed out of a deal due to a lack of financing. According to public disclosures made by the target, a fund that had agreed to purchase the company's shares terminated its agreement with the sellers on the ground that it had financing-related problems caused by economic fluctuations. The CMB's position was that such problems would not have occurred had the financing not been secured by the target company's assets. Reportedly, this led to the CMB's position that investors who wish to acquire shares in Turkish companies should secure their own financing instead of relying on the target's assets as collateral. The reasoning is that the use of the assets puts the minority shareholders in a difficult position.

The amendment to the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (the MRFTA) was passed during the parliamentary plenary session held on July 3 2007. If put into force, this amendment will mark the second amendment to the MRFTA in 2007, after an earlier amendment in April.

Switzerland is about to enact a new Book Entry Securities Act (BESA) and has signed the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights Held with an Intermediary, concluded on July 5 2006 (the Hague Securities Convention).

The Market in Financial Instruments Act entered into force on August 11 2007. The main reason for its adoption is the implementation of the Market in Financial Instruments Directive (2004/39/EC) (Mifid), the directive on the harmonization of transparency requirements in relation to information about issuers whose securities are admitted to trade on regulated markets (2004/109/EC) (the Transparency Directive), and Directives 2006/48/EC and 2006/49/EC on the capital adequacy of investment firms and credit institutions, in a scope applicable to investment firms.