Search results for

Nick Ferguson reports on the strategies followed by international firms in Singapore since the country’s joint venture experiment hit trouble

The Securities Settlement System Reform Law will come into effect in Japan in early January 2003. The object of the law is to provide a uniform, safe and efficient book-entry settlement system for certain corporate, government, municipal and foreign bonds, commercial paper and beneficial interests. Shares, warrants and convertible bonds are outside the scope of the new system. A unified settlement system for all securities remains a goal for the future.

Clifford Chance has advised France Telecom on the latest part of its disposal programme, which has seen the company selling its transmission tower business Télédiffusion de France (TDF) to a private equity consortium for €1.9 billion ($1.8 billion). Ashurst Morris Crisp advised the consortium, which consists of Charterhouse Development Capital, CDC Ixis Equity Capital and Caisse des Dépôts, the French bank. Clifford Chance advised France Telecom and White & Case and Linklaters advised the banks.

On May 21 2002 a new set of rules for standardized information disclosure was introduced by China's central bank the People's Bank of China (PBoC) to improve commercial banks' transparency. The introduction of the Commercial Banks Information Disclosure Tentative Procedures, which contain 31 articles in total and take effect immediately following promulgation, is seen as a further step taken by the PBoC in its effort to reform the banking sector and to reinforce market discipline for commercial banks, which are under enormous pressure from foreign competitors especially after China's entry into the WTO.

Proposed amendments to the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) corporate governance guidelines were recently published in response to the Saucier Report on corporate governance in Canada. Unlike the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the TSX does not have corporate governance listing standards. Instead, TSX companies are required to disclose their corporate governance system on an annual basis and, where the system differs from the TSX guidelines, to disclose the reasons for the difference.

The Australian Takeovers Panel recently declared a break fee to be unacceptable. The break fee was payable in shares, giving the offeror (Rexadis) the right to acquire a substantial interest in the target company (Ballarat Goldfields) if the shareholders rejected a proposal for Rexadis to buy assets of the company. The Rexadis proposal was one of three competing proposals for the future of Ballarat Goldfields. The Panel considered the break fee was likely to have a coercive effect on shareholders when considering the proposals. A rejection of the Rexadis proposal by shareholders could have diluted shareholdings. The Panel thought it was in the shareholders' best interests to be able to make an unfettered choice on the proposals.

By Thomas Williams

New rules that open China's fund management and securities industries to foreign investment do not remove all barriers to overseas banks. Nicholas Howson and Lester Ross of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison report

Six military transport ships are to be built by a private company and manned by civilian sailors in the latest twist in the UK government's use of private finance initiative deals.

"Morgan Stanley is not going to take a big position if the market could move against it, and the market surely would"