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Carmen Arribillaga Sorondo Alicia Galindo Aragoncillo The end of the year was extremely busy but successful for the so-called Spanish bad bank, the management company for assets arising from the banking sector reorganisation (Sareb – Sociedad de Gestión de Activos Procedentes de la Restructuración Bancaria). This was due to the sale of several portfolios comprising a large volume of credits (including credits to developers and office buildings and subsidised social housing units), loans (both performing and non-performing) and real estate owned to international institutional investors. These portfolios were carefully selected and structured by Sareb's business team together with external financial advisors to maximise its value. The portfolios were offered to institutional investors in an open competitive process in which they had access to all information through a virtual data room to analyse independently, to then place their binding offers. Many of these transactions (for more than €850 million, or $1 billion, in total) were completed at the end of the year due to their complexity and negotiation process.

Prisna Sungwanna Supattra Sathapornnanon The Thai Board of Investment (BOI) administers the Investment Promotion Act (1977) under which projects are granted investment incentives, guarantees, and rights to own land. These are important factors in securing project financing. The BOI announced a Seven-Year Investment Promotion Strategy (2015 to 2021) following the issue of Announcement No 2/2557 on December 3 2014, which repeals eight past announcements. It includes a new list of activities eligible for promotion, which has a number of changes from former lists. It prescribes new activity-based incentives and merit-based incentives. Activity-based incentives are divided into Group A and Group B, as indicated in the new list. Group A activities receive corporate income tax incentives, machinery and raw materials import duty incentive,s and other non-tax incentives. Group A is divided into four subgroups. Group B activities receive only machinery and raw material import duty incentives and other non-tax incentives. Group B is divided into two subgroups.

The lighter side of the past month in the world of financial law

Arendt & Medernach's Alexander Olliges, Stéphane Karolczuk and Anne-Laure Giraudeau explain why the Grand Duchy may prove a stepping stone for Chinese fund managers

Law firms ushered in 2015 with a spate of lateral hires. KING & SPALDING's New York office bolstered its cross-border transactional capability with the addition of Ye Cecilia Hong, who was previously a partner at Kirkland & Ellis. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese as well as English, Hong advises public and private borrowers and lenders on multijurisdictional distressed financings and restructurings.

Yesterday the Hong Kong Monetary Authority released its second consultation on its resolution and recovery regime. Here’s what you need to know

Mayer Brown’s Kevin Hawken, Carol Hitselberger and Jason Kravitt explain why the revised securitisation framework will affect EU and US banks differently

Sub-Saharan sovereigns’ dollar-bond borrowings have spiked. But with macroeconomic conditions worsening, what will stop the build-up of risks in the nascent market?

The long-awaited changes promise to create a more evolved business environment for foreign participants

Takuya Sonoda In 2014, the Japanese Diet agreed to amend, in two stages, the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations. This was following a series of scandals in which the menus used at a number of famous hotels and restaurants in Japan were found to be misleading, listing ingredients not actually used in the dishes. First, the Act for Partial Amendment of the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations (Law 71 of 2014) was promulgated on June 6 2014 and came into force on December 1 2014. This amendment introduced the requirement that business operators take all necessary measures to ensure the accuracy of all representations made to customers, including the establishment of appropriate managerial systems. Prime Minister Abe, on November 14 2014, oversaw the publication of guidelines to this amendment, setting out the fundamental policies of the amendment and listing specific examples of measures that must be taken by business operators in Japan.