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Elias Neocleous The Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law, Law 144(I) of 2007, requires Cyprus Investment Firms (CIFs) that hold clients' funds to take every possible measure to protect their clients' interests. The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) issued detailed guidance to CIFs regarding these obligations in 2012 in its Directive DI144-2007-01, which requires CIFs to have adequate arrangements in place to minimise the risk of loss or diminution of clients' assets as a result of misuse, fraud, poor administration, inadequate record keeping or negligence. CySEC has recently issued a reminder to CIFs that maintain a merchant account for the clearing or settlement of payment transactions that any such merchant account must be completely segregated and may not be used by anyone other than the CIF. Under no circumstances may CIFs' merchant accounts be used by connected persons or third parties, as this does not provide the required degree of segregation and protection of client funds.

Diego Alejos Rivera The market for securities and commodities in Guatemala operates within the legal framework provided by the Securities and Commodities Market Act. The regulation contained in this Act established the playing field in which securities and commodities are negotiated as well as setting out the parameters through which key players in the market behave. Although the Securities and Commodities Market Act is 18 years old and was amended once in 2008, the market remains undeveloped in Guatemala, as the negotiation of securities through public or private placements is limited. To counteract this, the Monetary Board is seeking to pass a new law, which will regulate the market and its players. The Monetary Board through this bill seeks to facilitate the integration and eventual development of the market in Guatemala by substantially modernising the legislation.

César Rodríguez The Colombian fourth generation concession programme is seeking its first financial closing. Considering the huge amount of money needed, concessionaires are trying to put in place the optimum capital structure, combining long-term senior financing, revolving liquidity facilities, equity contributions and subordinated debt. Historically, subordinated debt has been widely used in infrastructure projects in Colombia as an instrument to inject sponsors' equity, and to avoid cash traps and other restrictions. However, existing sponsors are assessing how to obtain subordinated debt from non-affiliated parties, such as governmental entities and private equity funds. This represents a new feature in the Colombian landscape, as well as further challenges.

Oene Marseille Emir Nurmansyah As of March 1 2015, anyone flying out of Indonesian airports will no longer need to shell out for the passenger service charge (more popularly known as airport tax). The charge will have already been included in the price of the airfare. The Indonesian director general of air transportation issued Regulation 12 of January 23 2015 addressing this matter. Regulation 12 was amended a month later by Regulation 59 (February 24 2015), but the core change was retained. Article 3, which states that passenger service charge will be assessed and added to the price of the airline tickets sold by the airline, was kept unchanged.

Karole Cuddihy John Breslin In Independent Trustee Company v Registrar of Companies 2015, the plaintiff (ITC) challenged the Irish Registrar of Companies (or Companies Registration Office: the CRO). The plaintiff claimed that the CRO gave the status of 'receivership' on the register of companies to a company which had a receiver appointed over some and not all of its assets. A lender appointed receivers over certain assets, which ITC held on trust for a sub-fund. The lender placed the usual advertisement in a newspaper and notified the CRO of the appointment.

Tomohiro Okumura Amendments to the Companies Act (Amendments) will come into force on May 1 2015, in which a new form of cash out will be included. Under the Amendments, the special controlling shareholder (a shareholder who holds nine-tenths or more of the voting power of all shareholders of the company) may demand that the other shareholders sell their shares of the company to the special controlling shareholder (a so-called demand for sale). By using a demand for sale, a shareholder who holds the majority vote may force minority shareholders out of the company. Conventionally, the method that is used for such a purpose is for the company to issue and acquire class shares by a resolution of the shareholders meeting. However, since this method necessitates the holding of a shareholders meeting, it is burdensome for a company.

Pedro Cortés Marta Mourão Following Notice no 009/2008-AMCM the Monetary Authority of Macau (AMCM) under its supervision power, issued new guidelines to be complied with by insurance institutions and the insurance intermediaries. These guidelines take into account the subsequent developments on anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) matters, including the revisions introduced by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) in relation to international AML/CFT standards in February 2012. These guidelines are annexed to Notice no 015/2014-AMCM that came into force on January 2 2015, revoking Notice no 009/2008-AMCM.

Sanjay Mohanasundram As in most other jurisdictions which seek to preserve the sanctity of the arbitration process, Malaysia's Arbitration Act 2005 limits the grounds on which a party can seek to reverse an arbitration award. Section 42 of the Act allows for a party to challenge an award on a question of law. Until the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in Government of Malaysia v Perwira Bintang Holdings Sdn Bhd there was some confusion as to when the court should exercise its discretion to set aside an award on a question of law. In this decision, the Court of Appeal set out the following criteria in order to determine whether an award should be set aside on this ground:

Mall of Mont Choisy Limited (MML) was party to an agreement to develop and lease a supermarket (ADL) with Pick 'N' Pay Retailers (proprietary) Limited. ADL envisaged that the parties would enter into a formal lease agreement on a subsequent date, which would be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Mauritian courts and which would not contain any arbitration clause.

Aksel Joachim Hageler Thomas Sando On March 4 2015, the Norwegian Competition Authority approved Coop's acquisition of rival grocery chain Ica. The decision ended a saga which has occupied the Competition Authority and the relevant market players for years. The decision also marked the second time in less than eight years that a foreign grocery chain has exited the Norwegian market. German Lidl previously aborted its attempt at penetrating the Norwegian market in 2007. While Coop has emerged as the winner among the grocery chains in the struggle for Ica, the decision leaves some of the spoils for both chains Norgesgruppen and Bunnpris. In the merger decision, the Competition Authority compelled Coop to divest 93 of Ica's stores to these two competitors, apparently leaving no room for either foreign buyers or other Norwegian players.