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Freddy Karyadi Oene Marseille The Indonesian Minister of Trade recently issued its Regulation Number 53/M-DAG/PER/8/2012 regarding the Implementation of Franchise. It replaced the Regulation of Minister of Trade Number 31/M-DAG/PER/8/2008 regarding the Implementation of Franchise. The main changes in the 2012 Regulation are as follows:

Tomohiro Okawa There are the three main types of insolvency proceedings in Japan. The first is bankruptcy proceedings under the Bankruptcy Act: liquidation-type insolvency proceedings. The second is civil rehabilitation proceedings under the Civil Rehabilitation Act: debtor-in-possession-type insolvency proceedings, which aims to enable a debtor-in-possession to recover by restructuring creditors' claims based on a rehabilitation plan. The third is corporate reorganisation proceedings under the Corporate Reorganisation Act: trustee-type insolvency proceedings, in which a court-appointed trustee manages a stock corporation to recover by restructuring creditors' claims based on a reorganisation plan. As a general matter, the Bankruptcy Act is silent on the issue of subordination and the judicial position on this issue remains unsettled. There are two opposing court precedents on this issue; a ruling of the Tokyo District Court on December 16 1991 in which the court denied the subordination of the claim submitted by the parent company of the insolvent party, reasoning that there are no statutory grounds under the Bankruptcy Act, and a ruling of the Hiroshima District Court on March 6 1998 in which the court permitted the subordination of the claim submitted by the controlling creditor of the insolvent party based on the principle of good faith.

Chinonyelum Uwazie The regulation of market abuse has for many years been the subject of discussions among financial market participants and scholars. It dominated discussions before the recent global financial crisis (see, for instance, Avgouleas, The Mechanics and Regulation of Market Abuse: A Legal and Economic Analysis Regulation, Oxford University Press, 2005), and the crisis has done nothing but heighten the discussions since then. Market abuse is generally perceived as a serious offence that damages investor confidence and the integrity of financial markets. This has caused scholars to argue that the rationale for controlling market abuse is the maintenance of investor confidence among others (RCH Alexander, Insider Dealing and Money Laundering in the EU, Ashgate, 2007). Rider, Alexander and Linklater note that integral to the efficient operation of any market is the maintenance of confidence in the integrity of its functions. (BAK Rider, C Abrams and TM Ashe, Financial Services Regulation CCH Editions 1997, cited in Alexander, Ashgate, 2007).

Daniel Futej Daniel Grigel An amendment to the Slovak Insolvency Code came into effect on January 1 2012 though important provisions newly regulating the responsibility of statutory bodies and other persons will not become effective until January 1 2013. The key legislative changes concern the test of over-indebtedness and the liability of the directors of insolvent companies There are two insolvency tests: financial liquidity test (the ability of the company to comply with its due debts) and test of over-indebtedness (the ratio of the company's total assets to its total debts – until the amendment it related to overdue debts). The over-indebtedness test will be assessed taking into consideration the debtor's future (expected) economic results. Subordinated and similar debts will be excluded from calculation of a debtor's financial situation. In both instances, for a company to become insolvent it is required to prove that it has more than one creditor – in the case of the financial liquidity test, with more than 30 days overdue debts.

The Philippine Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved on July 27 2012 the feed-in tariffs for solar, wind, biomass and hydropower projects. The approved tariffs are: P9.68 ($0.23) per kWh for solar, P8.53 per kWh for wind, P6.63 per kWh for biomass and P5.90 per kWh for run-of-river hydro. The ERC deferred fixing the FIT for ocean thermal energy conversion pending further study. In arriving at these tariffs, the ERC accepted the methodology used by the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) and took into account, among other things, the cost of construction and operation of the representative plants for each renewable energy technology, the generation output or capacity factors of these plants and the reasonable return on investment to be granted the renewable energy developers. However, the approved feed-in tariffs are lower than what was proposed by the NREB, which were: P17.95 per kWh for solar, P10.37 per kWh for wind, P7.00 per kWh for biomass and P6.15 per kWh for run-of-river hydro.

In Hewlett-Packard Co. v Commissioner (TC Memo. 2012-135), the Tax Court recharacterised preferred equity owned by Hewlett-Packard Co (better known as HP) in a Dutch corporation as indebtedness and denied HP foreign tax credits and a capital loss on the exit transaction.

Project financiers have a new set of environmental and human right standards to build into their risk analysis frameworks

Among the various measures taken by the Brazilian government to stimulate investments in infrastructure and research and development projects, one of them refers to issuance of debt securities to raise funds for such investments, which may be issued as debentures or any other type of securities admitted in Brazilian legislation (Capex Debentures).

The Central Bank of Cyprus has announced that it has commissioned an independent review of the domestic banking system at the request of the so-called troika (the tripartite committee of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund that is coordinating assistance under EU support mechanisms). The exercise will cover the principal commercial banks as well as the Co-operative Central Bank and a representative sample of affiliated cooperative credit institutions. It will include an asset quality review and a bottom-up stress test aimed at determining the capital needs of each participating institution.

On September 20 2012, the Government of India issued several press notes liberalising foreign direct investment norms in sectors such as aviation and multi-brand retail (MBR). The government thus allowed foreign investors to hold up to 51% of the share capital in Indian companies operating in the MBR sector, and allowed foreign airlines to hold 49% in companies operating scheduled and non-scheduled air transport services. Before this liberalisation, foreign direct investment was prohibited in MBR, and foreign airlines were prohibited from investing in air transport services (though foreign entities other than airlines could make investments in this sector).