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Twenty years ago IFLR ran a story on the Argentine crisis. Now another rumbles on. Stephen Hoare speaks to some of the financial markets’ leading personalities about the people, deals and regulations that have shaped our world in between

Dan Cunningham of Allen & Overy, New York, and Thomas Werlen, in London, call for innovation to drive the derivatives market forward

Following the enactment of the most recent Investment Companies Law (Ley de Sociedades de Inversión) last year, the National Securities Commission (Comisión Nacional de Valores) is now considering regulations that would allow authorized asset managers to:

Under the amended Commercial Code of Japan, which took effect on April 1 2002, the provisions relating to convertible bonds were replaced by rules relating to bonds with stock acquisition rights. The purpose of the amendment is to treat the option element of the convertible bond in a similar fashion to a bare stock acquisition right. The aim of the amendment was not to change the substance of the law on convertible bonds.

Although mergers or changes of corporate form have been permitted under Swiss law in individual cases, there have been no provisions available governing such transactions in general. Because there is a clear need for businesses to change their corporate form, either as a consequence of the company's growth or to meet the requirements of the capital markets, Switzerland's Federal Council entrusted a group of experts in 1999 to draft a law on the matter, which will come into force soon.

An uncertainty about the enforceability of arbitration clauses in state contracts was finally settled with the publication on April 29 2002 of the new Arbitration Act, BE 2545 (2002). The effective date of this Act was April 30 2002.

An innovative football securitization has set a precedent for future sports financings in the Italian market. Parma football club's €95 million ($88 million) securitization of sponsorship, licensing agreements and television rights is the first football securitization since the introduction of a new securitization law in 1999.

The first German public to private leveraged buyout under the country's new takeover laws has been structured, testing the new regime. Allen & Overy, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Hengeler Mueller and Shearman & Sterling have each been involved in the legal work on the deal, in which CIBC World Markets helped finance the acquisition of Gardena Holding by Green Holding, a new company established by Industri Kapital 2000 Limited.

To lose one managing partner may be regarded as a misfortune. But Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's loss of two might seem to some like carelessness. To others, with a more sensible frame of mind, it may appear as a coincidence. In response to media reports in the UK Freshfields is keen to dismiss talk of a management shake-up within its Asian network after the announcement that the managing partners of two of its biggest offices will soon be stepping down. Charles Stevens, the present managing partner of the Tokyo office, plans to retire in the autumn after five years with Freshfields and, in a separate move, Roger Dyer will be replaced in Singapore by David Simpson.

Derivatives specialists have been trying hard to defend their business in the wake of the collapse of Enron. At its annual general meeting the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) went as far as issuing a detailed rebuttal of claims that the market needs tighter regulation. "The market in the end exercised the ultimate sanction over [Enron]" its release asserts. But, try as they might, derivatives specialists cannot shake off all of the blame for the scandal. Now lawyers, too, have begun to suggest the markets may not be whiter than white. Though Enron's chief crime was to lie about how much it was really making, the company's collapse hides a quirk of the derivatives market that could bring down another organization if it goes unnoticed.