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The launch of Korea's first hybrid tier one issue has opened the way for what some observers predict could be a $3 billion market over the next 12 months.

By Thomas Williams

Heavily-indebted European companies could find themselves unable to tap international equity markets for extra funds as the result of a US-style corporate action brought against a UK company. The case was awaiting a ruling as IFLR went to press.

The past six months have seen the successful completion of the first rated collateralized fund obligations. Shlomo Twerski, Paul Watterson and David Nissenbaum of Schulte Roth & Zabel explain how to structure this new financial product

On July 14 2002 the Turkish Competition Board issued a new communiqué, mainly in line with the European Commission Block Exemption Regulation, on the group exemption of vertical agreements, replacing previous communiqués on group exemptions of exclusive distribution agreements, exclusive purchasing agreements and franchise agreements. Agreements benefiting from the previous group exemption communiqués must now comply with the provisions of the new communiqué by July 14 2003 to be exempted from the application of the relevant article of the Law on Protection of Competition regarding the prohibition of concerted practices resulting in the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition in a market for goods and services.

Spain's new Law 44/2002 on Reform Measures of the Financial System - in which many surprises can be found - has finally been issued. It was published on November 23 in the Spanish Official Gazette (BOE no 281). Except for matters specified in Final Disposition number 3 (Disposición Final 3ª), the bulk of the Law is enforceable from the day after publication.

The New Zealand Bankers' Association (NZBA) has recently released the third edition of its Code of Banking Practice. The revised Code, which came into force on December 2 2002, does not make substantial changes to the second edition of the Code. It incorporates most of the material from a Statement of Principles issued by the Bankers' Association in 1999 and, unlike with previous editions, applies equally to business customers. The Code includes new sections about the provision of credit and merchant card services. It has also been reorganized and contains more explanation of each section, possibly at the expense of its accessibility to the public.

Ben Maiden reports from New York on reaction to the appointment of Harvey Pitt's replacement as SEC chairman

The SEC has issued the first enforcement actions under its disclosure rules. The cases point to some of the difficulties in applying Regulation Fair Disclosure but should help issuers understand the types of activities it forbids. Leslie Silverman and SK Kang of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, New York, and Sebastian Sperber and James Small in Hong Kong explain

In October 2002 the Finnish government issued a proposal to the Finnish parliament to replace the existing Finnish Act on Financial Supervision by a new Act of the same name. The purpose of the proposed Act is to intensify and make more efficient financial supervision through a number of amendments to the supervisory measures and powers available to the Finnish Financial Supervision Authority (FSA) and to increase the authority of the FSA.