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Mauritius has throughout the last two decades forged a strong reputation as a premier international financial centre. Contrary to traditional offshore centres, it offers the ability for treaty-based tax planning through its network of double taxation avoidance treaties (DTA). In order to benefit from the DTAs, an investment should be made by a resident of Mauritius, generally through a Global Business Category 1 (GBC1) company.

Pedro Cortés Marta Mourão On January 5 2015, the Official Gazette published Law 1/2015, which provides for the new legal regime on the system of qualifications in the fields of urban construction and urbanism. This new law will come into force on July 1 2015 and was enacted as a response to the tremendous growth that Macau SAR has been facing in the civil construction and urbanism sectors.

Klaus Henrik Wiese-Hansen Ernst Ravnaas Since 2012, Norwegian tax authorities have focused on the way Norwegian private equity firms have structured their carried interest payments. A common private equity structure in Norway is that the management of the private equity firm owns shares in the fund or directly in the underlying portfolio company, through a private limited liability investment company. Carried interest for the management is connected to these shares. Under carried interest rules, buy-out executives have until recently paid relatively low capital-gains taxes on profits made from buying and selling companies, in the same way investors or entrepreneurs do, as carried interest has mostly been classified as tax-exempted dividends or capital gains. This is odd, Norwegian tax authorities have argued, given that the money wagered on private equity buy-out deals mostly comes from external investors as opposed to the executives (management) themselves. It makes more sense for these profits to be taxed like ordinary salaries, they argue, at a significantly higher tax rate.

Banji Adenusi Tolu Adetomiwa On January 22 2015, the Central Bank of Nigeria issued a directive to Nigerian banks, discount houses and other financial institutions to comply with the requirements of the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca), a legislation introduced as part of the US Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act 2010 to check offshore tax evasion by US subjects (account holders). Fatca ensures that the assets and incomes of US account holders held with non-US financial institutions, known as foreign financial institutions (FFIs), are disclosed to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This is in view of the fact that US tax subjects are taxed on their worldwide income. Failure to comply with the reporting obligation renders the US account holder or FFI to a 30% withholding on all US-sourced profits or payments. Already the withholding penalty has become applicable to fixed or determinable annual or periodical (FDAP) payments made on or after July 1 2014, while it took effect on FDAP gross proceeds and pass-through payments on January 1 2015.

John H Choi and Changhun Lee of Shin & Kim look at amended guidelines on the unreasonable exercise of IP rights

Beatriz Cabal In a move designed to further discourage the use of bearer shares in the Republic of Panama, the Panamanian Superintendency of Banks issued, on December 2 2014, the General Resolution of the Board of Directors SBP-GJD-0009-2014 in which they established measures for the identification of the real owners or final beneficiaries of Panamanian corporations. This latest resolution sets out a list of requirements that all Panamanian banks must comply with in a period of twelve months counted from the issuance of the resolution, for clients whose corporations allow the issuance of bearer shares.

Roberto MacLean Article 106 of the Peruvian Ley General de Sociedades (Law of Corporations) establishes that a corporation may not grant loans or provide guarantees to third parties, in support of the acquisition of shares issued by such corporation. Some argue that this constitutes an absolute prohibition, and that any agreement providing such financing is null and void. With this in mind, some practitioners have designed structures that they believe avoid the prohibition simply because they avoid the form of a direct financing prohibited by article 106, hoping form will prevail over substance if the case comes to court.

Sarah El Serafy The Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) issued rules on margin trading on September 10 2014. Prior to the issuance of the Margin Trading Rules, margin trading was only mentioned as a regulated activity under Law 8 of 2012 (QFMA Law) among other activities listed in the definition of 'financial services. The margin trading process for customers of a QFMA-licensed financial services company is spelt out in detail under the Margin Trading Rules. The Rules cover the opening of the account up to the registering of shares with the Qatar Central Securities Depository (QCSD), as well as registering increases on the customer's accounts opened by the financial services firm managing the account for the customer.

Iñigo de Luisa After several years of economic turmoil, Spain's GDP forecasts anticipate a two to three percent increase for the next two years. This is probably the best performance of all EU members. Consumption rates are improving and foreign investors' interest is high. However, it is true that the unemployment rate remains too high (above 20%) and this year of elections (regional, municipal and Spanish government) could have an unexpected impact on investors' attitudes. It is clear that the appetite of international investors, distressed and special situations funds and debt trade desks will continue in 2015. They have previously revolved around the usual well-known corporate names, but this should change and new names will come into action.

Isil Ökten Aslihan Özbey Akbank TAS has established a covered bond programme in an aggregate principal amount of up to €1 billion ($1.1 billion), which is the first ever mortgage-backed bond programme in Turkey. The first mortgage covered bond programme in Turkey was established on December 23 2014 on the approval of the base prospectus by the Central Bank of Ireland, after a challenging process. This programme comes after many years of hard work by the legislator, the issuers and the arrangers. Numerous changes have been made to the legislation to enable the first issue, and it would still benefit from further clarifications.