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A lesson from Astra International’s recent restructuring in Indonesia is that procedures for bondholder voting need to be more accessible in future. By Andrew Crooke

Hong Kong's new securities and futures laws will enable regulators to restrict offshore institutions selling financial services to onshore investors. Given uncertainty about how the rules will be interpreted and enforced, banks must reconsider how they win business. By Jill Wong of Allen & Overy

Companies considering rights offerings often need cash fast with few ways to get it. Including US investors in a deal can cost time and money, says Ashar Qureshi of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. But excluding them risks upsetting important backers

In a recent case, a company domiciled and taxable in France owned the entire share capital of a company domiciled in Geneva. The Swiss subsidiary was solely set up to hold and administer securities and as such benefited from the so-called holding company privilege, a favourable tax status accorded by both the Federal and Cantonal tax laws. However, under the French Tax Code, section 209B (Controlled Foreign Company Rules or CFC rules), a French company's share in the income of a company domiciled abroad, in which the former holds a participation either of 10% or more or with a value of at least €22.8 million ($24.3 million), is added, for tax purposes, to its domestic (French) income, provided that the foreign company enjoys a privileged tax treatment at its domicile.

Douglas Bartner, Michael Bosco, James Garrity and Stacey Spevak of Shearman & Sterling explain how Grapes became the first foreign company with minimal assets in the US to achieve restructuring under Chapter 11

Italy's regions, provinces, municipalities and other local entities can now securitize proceeds derived from the divestment of real estate assets under Law No 289 (December 27 2002). These territorial entities have become equal, in this respect, to the central government, which can finalize this kind of transaction under Law Decree No 351 (September 25 2001) as converted with amendments into Law No 419 (November 23 2001). For more details see IFLR, International briefings, January 2002.

Recent corporate scandals in the US and related discussions concerning the independence and integrity of analysts and their investment research have led to similar discussions in Finland. This article provides a brief overview of the Finnish rules and regulations applicable to investment research.

The revision of the exemption regulation that has caused problems for borrowers (see main feature) has also affected securititizations, putting billions of dollars of transactions temporarily at risk.

Life for foreigners issuing securities in The Netherlands has been made more difficult by a recent amendment to the law. Michael Evans reports on what lawyers are doing to change this

Global derivatives transactions are set to benefit fromimproved legal certainty thanks to a new master agreement document improving close-out procedures ( see article).