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Korea will lose a competitive edge if it continues to deny industry the access it wants to foreign legal services. By Andrew Crooke

The trust system in Korea will be overhauled to permit trusts consisting of several types of properties under one umbrella. The type of properties eligible for trusts will also be expanded to include various intellectual and industrial property rights.

On June 1 2004, the Administrative Measures for Foreign Investment in the Commercial Field (known as the Commercial Measures), promulgated by the Ministry of Commerce on April 16 2004, will take effect. The Commercial Measures will replace the Measures Concerning Pilot Projects for Commercial Enterprises with Foreign Investment, effective since June 25 1999. Consistent with China's World Trade Organization commitments, the Commercial Measures have abolished the entrance criteria (such as minimum annual turnover for the past three years and minimum asset value for the past year) for foreign investors wishing to engage in commission agents, wholesale, retail and franchise businesses (that is, so-called distribution businesses). Also, foreign invested retailers no longer need to restrict the total annual amount of imported merchandise to more than 30% of the amount of its merchandise sales each year.

The Finnish Investment Funds Act has been amended with effect from April 8 2004 to implement the two recent amendments to the Ucits Directive (2001/107/EC and 2001/108/EC). The amended Act has widened the scope of operations allowed for fund management companies to include certain types of investment services, such as portfolio management and investment advice. The assets of the fund may now be more freely invested in different types of instruments, such as derivatives. Under the new Act, a simplified fund prospectus is required to be prepared for each managed investment fund as of October 1 2004.

This spring, the Canadian Competition Bureau released for public comment a revised version of its Merger Enforcement Guidelines (MEGs), the document that explains how the Bureau analyzes proposed mergers. The Bureau is in the process of reviewing comments provided by various stakeholders and plans to finalize the revised MEGs this summer.

Christian Pilkington explains how Europe’s Credit Institutions Directive will simplify insolvency proceedings in the banking industry

On July 1 2004 the new Swedish Financial Advice Consumers Act will enter into force. The act has been established on the basis that there is a need for special consumer protection legislation regarding financial advice and will apply to financial advice that a business provides to a consumer and that involves the placement of a consumer's assets in financial instruments (for example shares, fund units and bonds) or in life assurance where the capital is placed in financial instruments selected by the consumer itself (so-called unit-linked policies). Compliance with the act is mandatory for undertakings providing financial advice to consumers.

Entering into an arbitration agreement, the parties sometimes provide for various alternatives. This happens quite often for example in loan contracts between Russian borrowers and UK based international financial institutions. In an attempt to bargain a favorable position in jurisdictional terms, the lender may want to reserve its right to go to a court of law. This is usually attained by supplementing the arbitration agreement with such opportunity, that is, by specifying that besides the option of having their dispute arbitrated the parties may initiate legal proceedings in, say, a UK court. Pursuing this bargaining path, the lender may also seek that a borrower unilaterally waive its right to challenge the jurisdiction chosen by the lender in case of a dispute. However, a lender should carefully exploit its bargaining power, since not all options will necessarily be viable.

Three Spanish banks have successfully securitized a new class of asset-backed notes, creating a legal and transactional framework for Spanish electricity companies to securitize revenues from customer bills.

To avoid the domino effect of a corporate failure, Australia may become the first common law jurisdiction to enact legislation depriving claimants of the right to uncapped damages. By Tessa Hoser, Nicholas Seddon and Paul Jenkins