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The member state is looking to launch a so-called bad bank to tackle its pile of sour debt. But some obstacles lie ahead

It is common for Japanese companies to maintain a continuing relationship with their presidents and chief executive officers (CEOs) even after they retire, and they usually remain in the company by taking on advisory positions, commonly known as komon or sodanyaku in Japan. Such advisory positions are not prescribed in the Companies Act of Japan and their roles vary from company to company.

The Irish parliament is debating a bill which, if passed, would regulate the owners of Irish loan portfolios. The proposed legislation – the Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) [Amendment] Bill 2018 (the Bill) is understood to have been triggered by reports of intended loan sales by particular retail banks in Ireland. Since 2015, non-regulated owners of loan portfolios comprising loans to consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been required to appoint a regulated credit servicer to manage the portfolio. This was to ensure that consumers and SMEs would continue to enjoy their statutory customer protection even though their creditor was unregulated. Broadly, this ensured consumers and SMEs were in the same position as if facing a regulated retail bank. However, in some political circles this regime has been perceived as providing insufficient protection to borrowers.

Brazil recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of Law 12.529/2011 (Brazilian Antitrust Law), which established a pre-merger control system and aligned the Brazilian Antitrust Authority (Cade) with more mature jurisdictions.

In line with most legal systems, Macau law also allows the issuance of preference shares as equity instruments, making them attractive both to issuers and investors in situations where the financing needs of the company should not disrupt an existing majority or the structure of the corporate power.

An amendment to the act on employment services slated to enter into force on May 1 2018 will have a substantial impact on the employment of third country nationals.

The Philippine government is aggressively advancing the acceleration of infrastructure and development of industries that will yield robust growth across the Philippines. Infrastructure projects are among the top priorities of the government with public spending on infrastructure projects targeted to reach between PHP8 trillion and PHP9 trillion ($154 billion to $173 billion) between 2017 and 2022.

In July 2017, the Spanish government announced the Extraordinary Road Investment Plan (Plan Extraordinario de Inversión en Carreteras or PIC). This plan involves investing €5 billion ($6.2 billion) to construct 2,000 km of highways over a four-year period (2017 to 2021).

Although full implementation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (Mifid II) in Portugal is expected to occur very soon, the truth is that market players already hold sufficient tools and comply with enough EU regulations to assess internal policies and procedures to make them compliant with the Mifid II requirements.

Italy's election has made the EU's worst fears a reality. The election saw a stunning rejection of the EU and massive support for eurosceptic parties, including the far-right League that became the largest conservative party in Italy. Negotiations are ongoing to form a functioning government and several permutations could arise, but the most probable conclusion politically is a coalition involving the 5 Star Movement, the League and potentially Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia. League has strongly favoured exiting the EU and the euro previously, and taken a hardline stance against immigration, venturing into clear racism on occasions. Just after her election as mayor of Cascina, in Tuscany, Susanna Ceccardi posted a cartoon of a young woman dressed as a Viking kicking a dark-skinned pig dressed in a turban who dropped a Koran, with the words 'wake up Europe' underneath. Since the election campaign began, their stance on the EU has softened somewhat but they are likely to be a big obstacle in any plans to pull member states closer.