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Banking confidentiality in Poland is regulated by the Banking Act of 1997. Generally it is based on the rather restrictive French model, however, the legislators have used their own construction in the wording of the legislation. Polish confidentiality regulations are within the bounds of the EU's legal framework and the requirements set for OECD members.

Stock exchange equity transactions are settled through a complex procedure, the first stage taking place within the relevant regulated market, and the second stage performed by the clearing houses managed by the Bank of Italy.

The Hungarian Civil Code governs collateral agreements in a separate chapter. Some forms of collateral are accessory in nature, ie are dependent on the principal claim (eg a suretyship), others are independent. Section 249 of the Hungarian Civil Code expressly includes in the second group bank guarantees by which a bank obliges itself to make payment to the beneficiary in accordance with the conditions in the statement of indemnity, and within the agreed period of time.

A government bill on amending the Finnish Act on the Book-Entry Securities System, prepared by the ministry of finance, was given to parliament in September. The bill pays particular attention to the international relations established between securities depositories and to the handling of foreign securities in the Finnish book-entry securities system. In addition, the provisions governing the entering of foreign securities into the Finnish book-entry securities system have been specified in the bill.

The Stock Exchange of Singapore (SES) recently introduced its Best Practices Guide to provide guiding principles on corporate governance for listed issuers.

Under the German Banking Act, banks and financial services institutions are obliged to have an appropriate amount of own funds to meet their obligations to their creditors. The various risks arising from their business must be recorded in their trading book and in their banking book, weighted and backed by own funds. The rules as to how this should be done were announced by the German Federal Banking Supervisory Office (BAKred) in October 1997 in its Changes and Supplements to the Principles Concerning the Capital and Liquidity of Institutions which, for the most part, came into effect on October 1 1998. The essential item is the new Principle I which regulates capital requirements for market risks (foreign currency risks, commodity risks and position risks from trading book transactions) and counterparty risks (credit risks).

The Danish parliament has adopted an act harmonizing rules regarding investments made by certain financial institutions (Act No. 490/1998) such as life insurance companies, pension funds and LD pensions. Financial institutions will be subject to limitations with regard to the proportion of their investment assets placed in certain securities. Before the act, investments in shares were limited to 35-40% of the total assets of the institutions. The purpose of the act is to attract venture capital to Danish businesses and to increase the proportion of foreign shares held by the institutions.

On August 21 1998, the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange circulated among the companies quoted on its market, the answer that the Comisión Nacional de Valores (the securities and exchange commission, CNV) gave to the question posed by the Mercado de Valores de Buenos Aires as to whether the fall in stock prices, caused by the global stock market crisis could be construed as constituting serious damage to the quoted corporations, thereby allowing them to buy back their own shares.

The task force on the future of the Canadian financial services sector was established by the Canadian government in December 1996 to undertake a careful, independent and objective analysis of the broad trends affecting the Canadian financial services industry, and to provide advice on public policy issues to help the government develop a framework for the industry in the 21st century. The task force was comprised of an independent and diverse group of individuals under the chairmanship of lawyer Harold MacKay.

Switzerland's telecoms company Swisscom has been privatized in Europe's largest initial public offering (IPO) of 1998. The issue had been valued to raise about Swfr7.5 billion (US$5.6 billion) for the government and Swisscom and to give the company a market capitalization of Swfr25 billion. The deal is the first privatization in Switzerland and the largest ever IPO in the country. It follows the rapid transformation of Swisscom from state-owned entity to private company, having been incorporated in January this year. The success of the Swisscom deal contrasts with the problems experienced by other telecoms offerings. The French government has delayed a secondary offering of shares in France Telecom and Goldman Sachs has withdrawn from the underwriting group for the Telekomunikacja Polska SA IPO due to take place in November.