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The revival of the French equity markets is putting the country's untested initial public offering rules on trial. Andrew Bernstein and Valérie Lemaitre make the initial assessment

The reasoning of the government bill, enacted into law by the Turkish parliament as Law 5020 Amending the Banks Act and Certain Other Laws (Law 5020), explains in a few sentences why amendments were required to the legislation regulating the banking and finance system: the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (SDIF) owes about $25 billion to the Turkish Treasury, due to bank failures. The reasoning includes a brief history explaining how this debt reached such an enormous figure and says that the government is determined to collect this amount from the liable parties, especially the bank owners and their cooperators who intentionally caused these failures and somehow benefited from them.

The South Korean government has eased regulations to allow foreign financial institutions to establish subsidiary banks in Korea. The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) amended the Guidelines for Authorization of Banking Business to allow for these changes.

Legislative Decree 170 of May 21 2004 (Decree 170) has implemented the Directive 2002/47/CE of June 6 2002 on financial collateral arrangements (the Directive).

A new Companies Act is proposed to replace the existing Companies Act of 1956. The new legislation aims to simplify and be more responsive to current situations, but some aspects of the concept paper are unlikely to be conducive to corporate and commercial expectations.

Good corporate governance has in recent years been an important topic for Danish listed companies and for many of the largest unlisted companies and institutions. The compliance discussion has also become an integral part of these companies' interest in the principles of good management, and it has become a part of everyday life for Danish institutional investors.

In July 2004, the Finnish Financial Supervision Authority (FSA) issued a statement on the interpretation of certain provisions of the Investment Funds Act on marketing of units in foreign investment funds in Finland.

The Insolvency (Amendment and Consequential Provisions) Act 2004 was passed in July. The amendments were a necessary precondition to the Insolvency Act 2003 Act, which came into force on August 16 2004.

The SEC last month put in place two of the final pieces of the most radical regulatory overhaul of the US mutual funds industry in 60 years. On August 18 the Commission voted to ban the practice of directed brokerage and to increase disclosure about portfolio managers, leaving just three rules in its year-long plan to be passed.

The UK market regulator is investigating Citigroup's unusual trading behaviour in the government Eurobond market. In August Citigroup sold over €10 billion ($12 billion) of government bonds in a matter of minutes, causing the market to fall and allowing Citigroup to buy back about €4 billion of the same bonds at a lower price later the same day. The trades did not breach any specific securities laws but the regulator is to decide whether Citigroup acted "with regard to the consequences of its actions".