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Recent developments in Spanish company law will favour access by Spanish companies to new financial mechanisms. One of these developments relates to the possibility for Spanish companies — previously not recognized by law — to issue redeemable shares (acciones rescatables), as an instrument through which the company may obtain additional funds for a limited time. This type of share represents an intermediate between fixed-income and variable-income securities. The main features of this new regime are as follows:

As Russia's economic and financial crisis continues, there have been a number of important legislative and policy developments, including the following:

The Portuguese Capital Markets Commission has enacted a regulation determining the terms and conditions for the direct listing of foreign securities on the Portuguese Stock Exchange.

On March 30 1998 new legislation on the protection of personal data came into force. The new statute is intended to implement the EC Data Protection Directive of October 24 1995. The Directive balances the interests of individuals with the interest of companies that use personal data in their business. The Directive is not designed to ban the collection of data but rather to control its uses.

On October 21 1998, the ministry of finance adopted a new regulation on the valuation of receivables, investments and contingency liabilities as well as of the contractual guarantees of credit institutions. Until then, these issues had been regulated through instructions by the banking supervisory authority which ceased to exist in 1997 and was replaced by the Money and Capital Market Supervisory Authority. These instructions have now been overruled by the new regulation entering into force on November 5 1998.

On July 1 1998 Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB) approved Resolution No. 11522 introducing new rules for intermediaries. The rules describe the procedure to be followed by an EU investment company to obtain authorization from the Italian authorities to offer in Italy services not admitted to mutual recognition.

On October 12 1998, Deutsche Börse began step two of its electronic trading system: Xetra Release 3. All of the 2,000 or so German and foreign stocks listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange as well as 360 bonds and 28 equity warrants may now be traded electronically. British securities are excluded from trading on Xetra because all market participants of Deutsche Börse may trade British securities on the London Stock Exchange by means of its electronic trading system SETS from January 1999.

The ministry of finance submitted a government bill on amending the Finnish Securities Market Act to parliament in October 1998.

The government has announced the merger of the Stock Exchange of Singapore (SES) and the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (Simex).

New Personal Property Securities legislation will soon be introduced to parliament. It has been described as New Zealand's most significant commercial law reform since the 1993 Companies legislation, and the change is long overdue; New Zealand's existing securities law is a confusing mixture of common law and various statutory rules. It is likely that the new legislation will be based largely on North American precedents and that it will replace not only the various existing statutes, but also the equitable and common law rules regulating the priorities of competing securities. The overriding intention is that all forms of security should be regulated in the same manner, and that the same rules should apply whether the debtor is an individual or a company. Further details regarding this important change will be reported on in a later edition.