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The recent Paul Davidson case shows how badly the FSA needs to make its enforcement reform work, says Philip Parish

Cleary and Debevoise reap rewards of SEC turnover A busy year of senior-level arrivals and departures continued for the SEC, with law firms providing the most common recruiting grounds and destinations for departing officers.

Although with its recent recodifications Ukrainian law has developed into a generally satisfactory legal system, some significant problems remain. In particular, Ukrainian law imposes a number of drafting requirements applicable for loan, credit and similar agreements between foreign lenders and Ukrainian borrowers (hereafter, loan agreements) that are unusual and that, unless satisfied, risk causing the invalidation of loan agreements with foreign lenders. Two such important special requirements are that an agreement between a foreign lender and a Ukrainian borrower must be in the Ukrainian language as well as the language of the lender, and any such agreement must contain an express clause on its duration.

While financial analysts and ratings agencies are actively involved in the growing Reit regime in Singapore, banks, so far, have been left behind. This is despite the fact that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has recognised the growing need for Reits to gear up. Last year, MAS proposed to amend the existing guidelines governing Reits, among other things increasing its cap on borrowings from 35% to 60% of deposited property, provided it has a credit rating of at least A from a major rating agency.

New rules regulating conflicts of interest and the duties of confidentiality and disclosure entered into force on April 25 2006. The rules form part of the Solicitors Practice Rules 1990 as Rules 16D and 16E, replacing Chapters 15 and 16 of the Guide to the Professional Conduct of Solicitors.

On May 30 2006, the Serbian president signed into law the Takeover Act (Official Herald of the Republic of Serbia, 46/06), the first systematized legislation in Serbia of takeovers. The Act came into force on June 10 2006.

Malta implemented the Ucits III regime immediately upon accession to the European Union on May 1 2004. After a slow start, there is an increasing interest from fund managers to choose Malta as the domicile for their Ucits-compliant funds. In line with the current interpretation of the Ucits Directive, the preferred methodology entails the utilization of self-managed funds and delegation arrangements. Self-managed funds formed as corporate entities (usually a SICAV) are managed by the board of directors, which can in turn delegate a number of management functions to an external management company which is authorised in any EU Member State and recognised in Malta.

On April 7 2006, the Norwegian Ministry of Justice forwarded a white paper suggesting several amendments to the act relating to private limited liability companies (aksjeselskaper or AS) and the act relating to public limited liability companies (allmennaksjeselskaper or ASA). The most important proposals are:

Law 85/2006 regarding insolvency procedures, published in the Official Gazette 359 on April 20 2006, will enter into force on July 21 2006 and has replaced in full the former bankruptcy law, enacted in 1995.

Despite the recent downturn, where the Jakarta Stock Exchange lost almost 18% of its capitalization, Indonesia's capital market remains live and active. A lot of mid-sized companies are either seeking strategic investors or hoping to enter the capital market via an initial public offering (IPO), while a lot of private equity investors and foreign hedge funds still find Indonesia attractive. In 2005, the Jakarta Stock Exchange was named one of the best performing capital markets in the world.