Search results for

Italian banking foundations have undergone a number of legislative interventions, the latest of which was by Legislative Decree 217, August 2 2002 (Decree 217). The banking foundations have also lately been the subject of two rulings by the Italian Constitutional Court, Rulings 300 and 301 of September 24 and 29 2003. These rulings affect the juridical status and, as a result, the activity and composition of banking foundations' bodies.

Rating agencies said Czech securitization would require legislative change. On the Home Credit Finance deal, lawyers convinced them otherwise. By Christopher Lewis, Harm van Berkum and Tomas Otruba

Andrew Sheng, chairman, Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong

Issuers and stock exchanges must do more to ensure investors can rely on publicized information about their listed securities. Andrew Crooke reports

Dematerialized shares are shares for which no certificates may be issued. Now Japanese joint-stock companies are generally required to issue share certificates. Many public companies' share certificates are deposited at the Japan Securities Depository Center, Incorporated (JASDEC), the central securities depository providing both depository and book-entry settlement services for marketable securities. For share certificates that have been deposited at JASDEC, no physical delivery of them is required in order to effect a transfer of shares. In September 2003, the Legislative Council of the Ministry of Justice published an outline for a new law, expected to be passed in 2003 or 2004, which will eliminate the issuance and use of share certificates of public companies and certain non-public companies.

The Ministry of Finance is in the process of making an integral revision of supervisory legislation reform in the financial services industry. The entire legislation on financial supervision must be revized as a result of the interaction between various financial sector and the required improvements to financial supervision. The Ministry of Finance has commenced consultation with the financial industry on the first part of the new legislation in connection with this revision.

One of Hungary's last remaining privatizations was finalized last month. Austria's Erste Bank agreed to buy a 99.97% stake in Postabank, the country's seventh largest bank, for Ft101.3 billion ($460 million).

Astro All Asia Networks, Malaysia's leading pay-TV operator, has become the first foreign-incorporated company to list on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced plans to create a new set of uniform rules governing short selling, which will apply to all exchange-listed and Nasdaq NMS securities.

Compromises in Europe's financial directives are unavoidable when creating a single market among states that regulate themselves independently, says Daniel Hurstel