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Rodrigo de Campos Vieira Due to the historic lack of financing sources for hotel projects in Brazil, the market has sought out creative fundraising mechanisms to meet the substantial deficit of hotel rooms in Brazil. The most successful financing structure known to date, referred to as condo-hotels, involves the sale of autonomous units from real-estate development projects or as an ideal fraction of real estate. The former integrates a pool of hotels managed by a professional operator, to individuals or corporations. The proceeds of the real-estate development project are distributed to the owners of the condo-hotel units by the operator of the pool of hotels.

Vicente D Gerochi Arvin Kristopher Razon The Philippine public-private partnership (PPP) programme, which the administration of President Aquino hopes will fast-track infrastructure development, has attracted a lot of interest from local and foreign investors. Nine projects have been awarded since 2010, including the NAIA Expressway, the LRT Line 1 Cavite Extension, the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Terminal, the Automated Fare Collection System, and the public school projects. Aside from these, 11 projects were rolled out in 2014, including the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway, which is the biggest project to date with a value of $2.73 billion. Local government units have also initiated their own PPP projects. With 50 more projects in the pipeline, the PPP programme could be the key to addressing the country's critical infrastructure backlog. However, concerns have been raised as to the sustainability of the programme. Will succeeding administrations continue to support it? Can best practices developed from, and the lessons of, past biddings be institutionalised?

Nicola de Sylva When the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) was first set up, only firms that provided services to the financial service industries were permitted to be established. That is no longer the case, and QFC licensed entities now serve a wide array of businesses. The permitted activities that can be undertaken in or from the QFC are prescribed by Qatari Law 7 of 2005, as amended (QFC Law) and are known as permitted activities, which include regulated and non-regulated activities.

Bruno Amiel The increased activity of investment funds in the Peruvian market during the last years has led to a rapid reshaping of the Peruvian corporate and M&A market. This increased activity came about both through the creation of new local investment funds and the heighted presence of foreign investment funds. Such investment funds have become major players particularly in private equity transactions, real estate and financing operations, where transactions are no longer limited to the acquisition of controlling stakes in large scale companies. They also now include acquisitions of controlling or minority participations in profitable small and medium companies operating in different sectors by investors pooling their funds through such investment funds. The increased activity was boosted by the Peruvian government enacting regulations to further local and foreign investment, executing investment treaties, simplifying administrative procedures for obtaining concessions, permits, and authorisations. This allowed the investment funds to further increase their investments in small and medium size companies operating in the different sectors. The consequent growth of such companies now requires a review of previously non-existent corporate governance regulations to protect new investors and maximise returns.

The new Minister of Finance, Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo, presented his first budget on March 23 2015. He qualified the budget as a no-tax budget, although it is perhaps more accurate to describe it as a no-new-tax budget. It is clear that the budget is aimed at boosting growth and investment.

Nicky Lester FRESHFIELDS BRUCKHAUS DERINGER has made inroads in Hong Kong recently, and at Linklaters' expense. The magic circle firm brought in energy partner Thomas Ng from its rival's office in Beijing and also hired partner David Ludwick to its capital markets practice. It's been busy on the private equity front as WHITE & CASE took a further step towards its strategic aim of building a pan-Asian private equity practice by hiring Korean expert Kyungseok Kim. WEIL GOTSHAL & MANGES raided Latham & Watkins for private equity partner Tim Gardner and JONES DAY snatched Scott Peterman from Sidley Austin. Sino-Australian firm KING & WOOD MALLESONS (KWM) made moves to prop up its China practice and integrate it into the global KWM firm. In Hong Kong it brought in the 15-year experience of Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) corporate partner Gary Lock and also hired Shao Zili – JP Morgan's Asia-Pacific vice chairman – as co-chair of its China management committee.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley’s proposals could boost the country’s equity capital markets. Here’s how

Banji Adenusi Bisola Olusoga As part of efforts aimed at bolstering investor confidence in the Nigerian capital market, the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released new rules on the operation of a National Investment Protection Fund (NIPF). The SEC released the rules in exercise of its powers under section 13(k) of the Investment and Securities Act (ISA) 2007, and they are geared towards providing a baseline guarantee for compensating investors whose losses are not covered by the Investment Protection Fund (IPF) of securities exchanges and capital trade points in the country. The NIPF provides a cover for investors who suffer losses on investments arising specifically from the bankruptcy, insolvency or negligence of capital market operators (CMO), in addition to defalcations of a CMO or its officers in relation to funds or assets in its custody. The fund is, however, only applicable to transactions regulated by the SEC, while an investor who colludes with a CMO in a wrongful act is disallowed from benefiting from it. In 2013, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) set up an IPF for investors on the NSE, which provisions mirror those of the SEC in some respects.

Ignacio Buil Aldana José Luis Lucena During 2014, Spain's Insolvency Act suffered an accelerated shift. This was a response to the economy's need to adapt to unprecedented complex insolvency cases that the former wording of the law was unable to tackle. However, this sudden legal evolution has engendered a general feeling of uncertainty caused by the lack of case law and real life examples. In an attempt to remedy this situation, in late 2014 the commercial justices of Madrid drafted a unified document approving common criteria with which to approach the new Spanish Insolvency Act. In essence, light has been shed upon a number of issues that have been holding back investors from distressed investing opportunities in Spain.

Muharrem Küçük Tolga Çabakli The new regulation on Principles and Procedures Applicable to Factoring Transactions (Regulation) was published by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency on February 4 2015 (Official Gazette 29257). The Regulation includes provisions related to: (i) invoicing; (ii) provision of negotiable instruments; (iii) assignment of future receivables; and (vii) retention of documents. The Regulation aims to prevent any fictive factoring transactions. It is prohibited to enter into any factoring transaction without a genuine invoice or a document which is also treated as the invoice. Banks and factoring companies incorporated in Turkey (Institutions) are required to inspect transactions to verify whether invoices are repeating or recurring, through the Central Invoice Record System. Additionally, if an invoice has been cancelled, clients must notify the Institutions and for the provision of new replacement invoices an undertaking must be provided by clients.