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Elias Neocleous Since the beginning of 2014, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has been developing a risk-based supervision framework. By focusing on the entities and activities that are of greatest importance in terms of their potential impact, it aims to increase the effectiveness of its regulatory activities. Consequently, CySEC's assessment of the risk that each individual entity it regulates poses will determine the intensity of supervision. A risk assessment will be performed for all entities at least every year and the outcome will be used to define each entity's monitoring programme for the forthcoming regulatory period. The assessment will be based on the impact, or potential harm that could be caused by a particular set of circumstances, weighted by the estimated probability of those circumstances actually occurring. Risk measures may be quantitative or qualitative. Impact is assessed on the basis of numerical and financial data extracted from the entity's regulatory returns. Probability is assessed on a range of criteria including the entity's governance arrangements and its susceptibility to being used for financial crime.

Oene Marseille Emir Nurmansyah Indonesia's Ministry of Trade has issued a regulation requiring the use of a letter of credit (LC) for the export of certain commodities. Under the new regulation, payments for export of crude palm oil, coals, oil and gas, and certain minerals including steel, gold, and nickel are to be done by way of an LC. Payments from export of manufactured goods are exempted from the regulation. The regulation also mandates that the payment price stated in the LC should not be lower than the world market price of the exported goods. Further, the paying bank in this process is required to be a qualified domestic bank (Bank Devisa di dalam negeri). LC payment performed by a foreign branch of an Indonesian-headquartered bank is disallowed.

John Breslin Callaghan Kennedy The Irish parliament is considering draft legislation to regulate the activity of loan portfolio servicing – the Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2015. The Bill has the sensible policy aim of ensuring that relevant Irish borrowers (natural persons and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) retain the protections they have under Irish law if their loans are sold by Irish-authorised credit providers to unregulated purchasers.

Alexei Bonamin The Brazilian mutual fund industry, the sixth largest in the world, has been primarily regulated by Instruction 409 from the Brazilian Securities Commission (Comissão de Valores Mobiliários – CVM) for the past 10 years. On July 1 2015, this will be revoked and replaced by Instruction 555, issued by the CVM on December 17 2014, which will then govern the incorporation, management, functioning and disclosure of information of mutual funds.

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.

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.

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.

In light of recent chaebol activity, overseers at the Korea Corporate Governance Service explain how the market must improve