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Updating the legal framework in Central America will help guarantee data confidentiality. But in order for companies to face growing vulnerabilities and risks, any internal policies or regulations that they establish must be complemented with appropriate technology. In El Salvador and the rest of the region, companies are rethinking their security strategies, including controls, policies, work regulations and internal processes. These new security measures are driven by the evolution of technology, IT security incidents and industry growth.

On September 20 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) issued decision 3610A/QD-BCT announcing a plan to remove 675 business and investment conditions from the 1,216 existing conditions under its management for the 2017 to 2018 period. This is the MOIT's first move in response to the government's recent call for a comprehensive review and removal of unnecessary business conditions which restrain foreign investment and reduce national competitiveness. Since its issuance, decision 3610A has made headlines due to its unprecedented reduction of business conditions in the history of the MOIT.

The country is again amending regulations applicable to offerings of foreign funds to qualified investors. The changes should be positive - with some notable exceptions

Increased tax transparency obligations on private companies may actually make it easier to be IPO ready

Regulatory enforcement and related litigation in the UK have evolved significantly since the financial crisis

The market is pondering what life after the benchmark will look like, including possible replacements and the impact on future and updated bond programmes

The Diet passed the Housing Rental Business Act (an official translation is yet to be determined) on June 9 2017. The Act, which will take effect in June 2018, defines and regulates vacation rental businesses such as Airbnb.

In August 2017, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources introduced a new regulation which revoked its previous controversial (and short-lived) regulation which had required that the ministry's approval be obtained by sponsors of independent power producers (IPP) before executing any share transfer or change of the IPP's board of directors or commissioners.

In 2014 the Irish parliament passed the Merchant Shipping (Registration of Ships) Act 2014 (the Act) to update the regime for the registration of Irish ships and the regime for registering mortgages over ships. It is intended that the new regime will provide a more efficient, user friendly and accessible regime for commercial ship owners and those involved in financing the construction and purchase of vessels. Among other things the Act provides for the establishment of an electronic ship ownership and mortgage register. It preserves all of the basic protections under the existing regime for banks which have a mortgage over commercial ships. With the exception of one provision, however, the Act has not yet been commenced. Given the potential for the further development of shipping finance in Ireland, it is hoped that the government will soon implement it.

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are now the focus of both the public's and the regulator's attention. ICOs are a digitalised method of raising capital in which an organisation issues tradable digital units (tokens) to finance a specific project or to develop it further. They are exclusively used to fund early stage projects of startups, often without a clear track record and with unclear success probability. In the course of the offering, the investor receives a token from the issuing organisation in exchange for cryptocurrencies (for example, bitcoin) or standard currencies (also referred to as fiat money). Tokens are created on a blockchain and exist as tradable digital units on distributed ledgers as a part of a protocol. For example, the Ethereum blockchain provides not only the cryptocurrency Ether, but also a platform to write smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, which makes it possible for market participants to easily generate and issue their own tokens, mostly on the basis of the ERC-20 token standard.