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Regulators from around the US are queuing up to condemn investment banks for their use of analysts and allocation of shares in lucrative offerings. Ben Maiden reports from New York on the battle over Wall Street

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

Money from the EU to improve central Europe's broken-down infrastructure will make less difference than lawyers might hope. Tom Williams reports

Japanese banks are preparing to use synthetic collateralized loan obligations to obtain capital relief after the largest reported deal of this type won regulatory approval and closed at the end of September.

Canada's largest law firm has acted for the banks in the biggest syndicated financing in eastern Europe.

Davis Polk advises on $180 million secondary offering

The European Securitisation Forum has added its voice to those questioning proposed changes to international accounting standards. Rob Mannix reports

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has admitted that tough deadlines for implementing Sarbanes-Oxley mean the regulator has little time to consider exemptions for foreign issuers.

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.

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.