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On November 28, the European Banking Authority (EBA) released its consultation on the criteria for determining the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities for bail-in, the so-called MREL. Using MREL, European authorities will ensure that banks have enough liabilities to absorb losses in case of failure, forcing shareholders and creditors to shoulder much of the recapitalisation burden, instead of taxpayers.

Regulators must give up on turning back the clock The UK Prudential Regulation Authority's (PRA) proposals for the senior manager regime have drawn criticism from the City over the past month. According to the PRA, the proposals are intended to create a new framework to encourage individuals to take greater responsibility for their actions, and will make it easier for both firms and regulators to hold individuals to account.

Five months have passed since the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) was implemented in Norway. Since July 1 2014, a relatively large number of applications have been filed with the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway (FSAN), concerning both marketing in Norway of non-EEA alternative investment funds (AIFs) of EEA alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs) and AIFs of non-EEA AIFMs. The FSAN have slowly but steadily been working through the pile of applications and after a somewhat slow start in July and August, have now increased the pace. To date, approximately 30% of the filed applications have been handled. Of these, approximately 65% relate to non-EEA AIFs of non-EEA AIFMs and 35% relate to non-EEA AIFs of EEA AIFMs.

In late October, the Slovak Parliament adopted a comprehensive amendment to the income tax act, introducing changes in direct taxation that will come into force on January 1 2015. Here, we are provide a brief summary of the key changes introduced in the amendment that affect businesses.

Discussion about how to tackle market structure and the opaque activities of dark pools has left one group feeling a little left out: the regulated.

Ignacio Buil Aldana José Luis Lucena Spanish debt is in the spotlight, and it will continue to be for a while – no market player questions this. However, one preoccupation remains: can equity be crammed-down under Spanish insolvency law? Unfortunately, the answer for the moment is no. Existing regulations do not provide lenders with tools to forcefully cram down the equity in those cases where the latter has no interest. In fact, Spanish debt-for-equity swaps need the consent of shareholders at all times.

Daniel Bader Ruth Bloch-Riemer In a popular referendum on November 30 2014, Swiss voters decided by a clear majority of 59.2% on the retention of the lump-sum taxation regime on a federal, cantonal and communal level. A separate vote in the Canton of Geneva had the same result on the cantonal level in Geneva: a majority of 68.7% of the Geneva voters decided on the retention of the lump-sum taxation regime on the Geneva cantonal level. Besides the retention of the lump-sum taxation regime, Swiss voters also clearly decided against the so-called Ecopop referendum, which would have foreseen restrictive requirements for immigration to Switzerland.

Banji Adenusi As a form of financial derivative involving the sale of securities, repos are central to the provision of liquidity in the financing and trading of treasury securities. The Nigerian repo market, however, remains largely dominated by the money and interbank markets as the main liquidity providers. With their global attractiveness, the primary concerns in Nigeria relate to the validity, enforceability of netting provisions, transfer of title and recharacterisation of repos. Bearing in mind that repos can sometimes be said to operate in a manner similar to secured credit transactions, perhaps these concerns are worth highlighting. In Nigeria, the laws applicable to derivatives are equally applicable to repos (section 315 of the Investment and Securities Act), while securities lending appears to be a generic term encompassing a host of transactions including repos. The approach favoured by the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is to interpret all types of dealings involving securities as falling within the ambit of section 315. The validity of these transactions is guaranteed, further taking into consideration their non-classification as unlawful gaming contracts.

Bank of China's RMB 39.94 billion ($6.5 billion) additional tier 1 (AT1) offering proved the depth of Asia's capital markets. The bank's innovative structure has also set a precedent for the rest of the industry.

Soonghee Lee Youngwoo Park The Korea Exchange (KRX) opened the marketplace for exchange traded notes (ETN) on November 17 2014. ETN are derivative combined securities that guarantee the same rate of return as that of the underlying index at maturity. They are simpler than equity-linked securities (ELS) in structure and tradable prior to maturity. Since they are derivative combined securities, ETN have the same legal characteristics as equity linked warrants (ELW) and ELS, but differ in structure from ELW and ELS because they are a product linked to the underlying index. Moreover, although ETN provide the return in a similar manner as exchange traded funds (ETF) since both are indexed to the underlying asset, ETN differ from ETF in that they provide a return based on the underlying index at maturity after subtracting the fund fees. Participants of the capital market anticipate that the ETN market, introduced in an effort to advance the Korean derivative products market, will satisfy ordinary investors' demand for a variety of new financial products in the existing low growth, low interest rate environment. Participants also believe that securities firms would be afforded an opportunity to increase their profitability and competitiveness from more varied product offerings. The backdrop for introduction of the ETN marketplace can be explained as follows. The number of investors who are seeking medium risk and rate of return, rather than traditional products such as stocks and bonds, increased in the rapidly aging society. In addition, there arose the need to develop new financial products (such as index linked structured products) so that ordinary investors could make investments in more varied product offerings. Commentators anticipate that there will be more investment opportunities for ordinary investors because the introduction of ETN allows direct investment with a smaller investment amount in various asset classes, while it was previously difficult for such investors to understand and compare the profit structures of derivative combined securities products. Moreover, if index-linked structured products that were previously traded outside the exchange begin to be traded on the exchange, then issues such as misselling, system risk, and low price transparency would be resolved. This would lead to better protection for investors, and ultimately, the creation of profitable products for securities firms. On the other hand, while various pensions and funds are important institutional investors that make the market and provide liquidity as liquidity providers, it has been reported that pensions and funds would not participate in the ETN market in the early stage of the launch because of internal fund management regulations, tax issues, and lack of perceived attractiveness of the market. Therefore, appropriate measures need to be provided to deal with such issues.