Search results for

Later this year the EU is expected to pass legislation that will pave the way for the European Company, with far reaching implications for cross-border business in Europe. Jean-Louis Joris of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, Brussels, looks at the challenges in drafting the law and the potential benefits for multinationals

On May 29 the Banks Law was amended for the second time within two years of its enactment. The main goal of the Amendments is to bring the Turkish banking sector closer to EU standards and to clarify the authority of the Saving Deposits Insurance Fund in its dealings with the problem banks transferred to it and their shareholders.

Cashpooling is the centralization of group treasury management used to maximize the financial results of the cash management policy of a group. The past couple of years have seen an ever increasing demand for the implementation of European cross-border cashpooling systems, involving one or more Portuguese subsidiaries. As a rule the pool leader is located in a European country other than Portugal.

The new provisions of the Act on Insurance Companies (ICA) and the Act on Foreign Insurance Companies (FICA) have expanded the business opportunities of Finnish insurance companies and insurance companies located outside the EEA. New rules on the marketing of insurance products and services were introduced concurrently. The objective of the amendments is to expand the possibilities of insurance companies to operate in the financial markets and to harmonize the marketing rules and requirements applicable to credit institutions and insurance companies. The amendments of the ICA and FICA became effective on May 15 2001.

Among the most important recent developments in the Belgian financial landscape are the transformation of the Brussels stock exchange into Euronext Brussels and the start of Nasdaq Europe following the takeover of the pan-European Easdaq market by Nasdaq.

John Walker, Milbank Tweed US firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy has helped close the largest static collateralized debt obligation (CDO) in Europe, advising three Portuguese Banks on the second Tagus Global Bond Securitization. At euro1.1 billion ($942 million) the transaction is the largest static CDO in Europe and only the second collateralized bond obligation to include Portuguese debt. Milbank Tweed partner John Walker advised lead managers and arrangers Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank on the transaction that involved an issue of three tranches of bonds at different values and maturity dates on behalf of a syndicate of Portuguese banks. Pedro Cassiano and Paulo Gomez from the Portuguese firm Veira de Almeida & Associados advised the syndicate of banks, including Banco Comercial Português, Espírito Santo Activos Fianceiros and AF Investimentos Gestão de Patrimónios, on Portuguese law.

Christian Lambie, Allen & Overy Building on the success of its 1999 securitization of the UK's Broadgate shopping centre, Allen & Overy has pulled off a similar deal for UBS Warburg. The UK firm has advised the bank as structurer and lead manager on a £575 million ($812 million) for UK property company British Land in the first of two deals it closed in June in the commercial mortgage-backed securitzation field. The transaction involved the issue of secured and unsecured debt by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) of the British Land Group, backed by rental payments from 35 supermarkets leased by to UK grocer J Sainsburys. The debt was then bought and reissued by an orphan company, Werretown Supermarkets Securitizations, which issued two senior tranches of bonds.

Australian firm Clayton Utz has advised on the world's largest trade in carbon credits. The deal, completed in Sydney in early June, was struck between Japan's Cosmo Oil and Australian Plantation Timber, and involves the trade of one million CO2 tonnes over an 11-year term. The trading of carbon credits is not a well-established field. The Kyoto Protocol would have provided a framework for such trades but so far no developed nations have ratified the agreement and the withdrawal of US support is likely to bring about its complete collapse.

In May, 12 years into negotiations to create an EU directive on takeovers, Germany suddenly got cold feet. Hartmut Krause of Allen & Overy, Frankfurt, discusses the compromise with the EU it has since won and how it can draft its own legislation to protect German companies from hostile international bids

On May 11 2001, the board of directors Colombian Central Bank (Banco de la República) issued External Resolution No. 2 of 2001 reforming articles 48, 49, 50 and 51 of External Resolution No. 8 of 2000, issued by the same entity, which contains the Foreign Exchange Regime. The articles that were reformed comprise the special foreign exchange regime applicable to the oil, gas & mining sectors in Colombia. The special regime allows certain entities which participate in the oil, gas and mining sector in Colombia not to repatriate to the Colombian foreign exchange market the revenues they receive from sales made by them in foreign currencies.