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When Merrill Lynch fell foul of US securities laws during China Telecom's initial public offering, the bank's actions highlighted industry-wide cracks in internal compliance. By Andrew Crooke

The Colombian Supreme Court of Justice (Corte Suprema de Justicia) has carried out an analysis of the legal nature and characteristics of performance bonds between private parties (by means of Decision No 6785 of May 2 2002). In the Decision, the court established that the bonds were initially regulated by Law 225 of 1938 which set out the legal regime for management and performance bonds with the purpose of assuring compliance with obligations derived from laws or contracts. Law 225, in the opinion of the court, is still in force. The bonds are generally conceived as an insurance by which a creditor is covered against any economic loss that may derive from the eventual breach of their debtor's obligations, transferring such risk to a third party (an insurance company) which assumes it as its own obligation in exchange for the payment of a premium.

October 2002 marked the first anniversary of the proclamation of Canada's Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act. The Act makes fundamental changes in the areas of financial institution ownership, investment, operations, corporate governance, consumer protection, and foreign bank branch regulation, thereby potentially having significant influence on the business decisions of Canada's financial institutions. New ownership regimes mean banks and insurance companies are now categorized according to size based on shareholder equity. New rules permit expanded interests to be held in Canadian financial institutions. In addition, regulated, non-operating bank and insurance holding companies may be established.

Regulators in South Korea have introduced rules intended to swell the flow of corporate information to shareholders. Yet the new regime could have precisely the opposite effect, say Woong-Soon Song and Sang Man Kim

In the second of two articles, Tim Lester, Mohammed Asaria and Udo van der Linden consider the future for asset-backed finance in Korea and Taiwan as both countries strive to learn from the progress of neighbouring Japan

Australian banks have less than a year to comply with the country’s new code of practice. Ros Grady reports

The Turkish Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (the BRSA) has taken on the mission of changing the banking system radically and in furtherance of its efforts has issued the Regulation on the Establishment and Activities of Asset Management Companies (AMCs).

German companies listed in the US will find it tough to reconcile differences between their traditional practices and the requirements of American corporate governance reforms. By John Palenberg, Ward Greenberg and Gabriele Apfelbacher

In 1998, the Federal Banking Commission (FBC) issued a circular to all banks setting out guidelines relating to money laundering. The FBC now plans to issue more formal and stringent legislation in the form of an Ordinance on the subject. A draft of the Ordinance prepared by a committee was sent for comment to various business organizations of the banking trade at the beginning of July.

Amendments to the Hungarian Labour Code, effective from September 1 2002, appear to favour employees' interests over those of employers.