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Firms are facing hurdles in the race to tap the retail investor market. Debevoise & Plimpton’s Erica Berthou, Jordan Murray and Evan Neu analyse the challenges

Nobuaki Ito The Anti-monopoly Act of Japan was promulgated on December 13 2013 and is expected to come into force within 18 months (the specific date to be determined by way of cabinet order). The Act will abolish administrative appeal procedures by the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) for certain JFTC orders. In addition, a supplementary provision of the amended act provides that the government will, within one year of the promulgation date, consider changes to investigation procedures to preserve the rights of potential interested parties and maintain consistency with other administrative procedures, and will take appropriate measures as necessary in accordance with the discussions. In response to this, an advisory panel was set up and one of the main points for consideration is whether attorney-client privilege should be introduced for anti-monopoly procedures in Japan. In Japan, there is no attorney-client privilege in criminal or administrative investigation procedures. However, some assert that this should be granted in respect of anti-monopoly investigation procedures because: (i) companies providing information which involve communications with their attorneys in response to report orders from the JFTC may possibly be waiving attorney-client privilege that, with respect to these communications, would otherwise be recognised in foreign jurisdictions; and, (ii) granting attorney-client privilege to an extent similar to common law jurisdictions will not unduly hinder JFTC investigations and the JFTC can seek and collect relevant non-protected materials.

Karla María León Navarro Several laws have been enacted in Panama to regulate contracts and relationships between employers and employees. These involve specific principles to use in a labour dispute involving a disavantageous position for the workforce. Before a dispute, the judge must take into account one particular legal principle, which has been created to promote an equal relationship. The principle is mainly to protect the worker, who is presented as the legally weaker party compared with the more powerful employer. The principle in dubio pro operario was set out in the Labour Law for several reasons. First, the worker is subject to the employer's disciplinary power, direction and orders. This is a form of economic dependence for the employee, who receives benefits such as a salary, paid holiday, health insurance, sick pay, and retirement contributions.

What is troubling the regulator - and how the market can help

Political concern and misunderstandings could threaten the budding US rental securitisation industry before it has a chance to take off.

Corporate inversions out of the US continue to gather pace. Arthur Cox's Maura McLaughlin and Conor Hurley explain what a company must consider when choosing a transaction structure

Orrick’s Raul Ricozzi and Francesca Isgrò explain what must change before investors and sponsors can gain the benefit of project bond technology

Thomas Sando One of the changes to the Norwegian Competition Act (the Act) that entered into force on January 1 2014 was the amendments to the leniency scheme available for cartel participants considering blowing the whistle to the Norwegian Competition Authority (the NCA). Under the previous scheme, the conditions for obtaining leniency were hidden in the Leniency Regulation. From January 1, the conditions are included in the new sections 30 and 31 of the Act, dealing with complete and partial leniency respectively. Besides the relocation of the conditions for obtaining leniency, the amended scheme introduces a marker system in line with the system in the EU. This is an improvement, as it will be possible for leniency applicants to initially bring only limited information, yet receive leniency rights from the time of the initial application.

The US district court judge lost his battle against the SEC’s settlement policy, but he may have won the war. Here, a former SEC commissioner explains why

John Breslin Karole Cuddihy The Irish High Court decision in Ulster Bank Ireland Limited v Dermody (2014) has raised an evidential issue for financial institutions contemplating debt enforcement and possession proceedings. The issue is whether, in proceedings brought by a bank, evidence grounding the proceedings can be given by an officer or employee of a legal entity other than the bank. In a number of cases, the intended deponent will in fact be an employee of a related company (or in some cases an employee of an external service provider), even if they have carried out the day-to-day dealings with the customer. In Dermody, the person who swore the affidavits grounding the application for summary judgment was not an employee of Ulster Bank Ireland Limited (UBIL), but rather of Ulster Bank Limited (UBL), a related company which dealt with the debt collection process of UBIL on its behalf. UBIL was a wholly owned subsidiary of UBL.