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The People's Bank of China (PBOC) promulgated the new Provisional Measures of the Administration of Foreign-Funded Financial Institutions in Shanghai-Pudong Conducting Renminbi Business Pilot Scheme (the Measures) on December 2 1996. About a month later, the PBOC granted licences to Citibank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Hongkong Bank and Industrial Bank of Japan to conduct Renminbi (Rmb) business.

Elizabeth Wall, group director of legal services at Cable & Wireless, London, talks to Diana Bentley

On November 11 1996, South Africa's new Labour Relations Act took effect. The Act, to a large extent, replaced the prior South African labour law framework. The primary focus of the Act is the regulation of relations between trade unions and employers. However, to a lesser extent, the Act also regulates important aspects of the relationship between employers and individual employees. The Act encompasses all sectors of the labour force, in contrast to the predecessor legislation which did not cover employees in the agricultural, domestic services or public sectors.

At present the Swiss criminal code (SCC) does not contain an express provision making the manipulation of stock prices a criminal offence. However, this will change with a new provision, Article 161bis SCC, scheduled to come into force in the course of 1997. This sets out the kinds of manipulation of stock prices punishable by law and reads as follows:

The Act on bonds which came into force on August 20 1995 deals with particular types of bonds such as convertibles. Since then, no convertible bonds have been publicly offered by Polish issuers and quoted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. However, a few convertible bond issues are now known to be in preparation. Convertible bonds need to be attractive securities to satisfy both corporate and financial needs (eg, they may serve as protection against an unexpected takeover; the public offer or private placement, as the case may be, of convertible bonds is often easier and more successful than that of standard bonds).

The Danish securities market was reformed by the Danish parliament in December 1995. The Act on Securities Trade and the Act on Stockbroker Companies (together with amendments to the Banking Act and the Mortgage Credit Act) implemented the Investment Services Directive (93/22) and the Capital Adequacy Directive (93/6). The Act came into force in 1996 and the relevant executive orders under the Act have been issued, so that we also now have some impression of the first effects of the reform.

For the first time in 20 years, new foreign banks have been awarded full branch status in Thailand. Formerly, only 14 foreign banks were permitted to have branches in Thailand, including the Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo, Banque Indosuez, Chase Manhattan Bank, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, Sakura Bank and the Standard Chartered Bank, among others. On November 7 1996, the Finance Ministry granted full-branch licences to seven new foreign banks, selected by the Bank of Thailand on the basis of the amount of trade with each bank's country base, to upgrade their offshore banking units.

In early December, Ferrovias, the government agency in charge of the Colombian railway network, published the rules for railway concessions for the next 30 years. Concessions will be awarded for the modernization, maintenance, operation and exploitation of the railways.

Proposed legislative changes in Finland will further facilitate the use of mezzanine finance instruments, whose relatively high yields make for an attractive investment option. By Kari Lautjärvi and Jukka Muhonen of Heikki Haapaniemi, Attorneys-at-Law, Helsinki

IFLRev identifies and discusses the most interesting deals of 1996. By Paul Lee, Richard Forster, Alexandra Lennane and Samantha Wigham