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As record volumes in European debt capital markets continue into 2014, so too has the availability of funding options increased

At long last, the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive reform package (Mifid II) has been announced. But the final accord, aimed at overhauling Europe's securities markets, has proved more than a little underwhelming.

Anna Pinedo Market participants are still poring through the final regulations under section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act, known as the Volcker Rule. The Volcker Rule prohibits a banking entity from engaging in proprietary trading, and from acquiring or retaining an ownership interest in, or sponsoring, a hedge fund or private equity fund. Given the breadth of the activities covered by the Volcker Rule, most financial institutions will be affected. Proprietary trading is defined as engaging as principal for the trading account of the banking entity in the purchase or sale of a financial instrument. Trades are presumed to be for the trading account of a banking entity if the position is held for fewer than sixty days, unless the banking entity can demonstrate otherwise. Certain trading activity is expressly permitted, such as in connection with underwriting activities, market making-related activities, and risk-mitigating hedging activities. However, the conditions for reliance on these exclusions are complex. In order to engage in a permitted activity, a banking entity must maintain an internal compliance programme; the compensation arrangements of personnel involved in the activity must not be designed to reward or to create incentives to engage in prohibited proprietary trading; and the banking entity must be licensed or registered to engage in the permitted activity. Trading in connection with underwriting activities is permitted only if the trading desk's underwriting position is related to a distribution of securities for which the banking entity is acting as underwriter. The prohibition on proprietary trading does not apply to purchases or sales of financial instruments by a banking entity made in connection with that entity's market making-related activities. Subject to numerous conditions, hedging activities that are 'in connection with and related to individual or aggregated positions, contracts or other holdings' and 'designed to reduce the specific risks to the banking entity' that are 'related to such positions, contracts or other holdings' are permitted. In order to distinguish between these permitted activities and impermissible proprietary trading, the rule requires banking entities to establish comprehensive compliance policies, procedures, and rigorous calculations and documentation. Certain activities that occur solely outside of the US are excluded from the scope of the rule. Although it is still too early to assess the full impact of the rule on capital markets activities in the US, it is fair to assume that certain foreign banking entities with limited operations in the country may determine to restructure their US business and pare back the scope of their activities. For US banking entities, it is reasonable to anticipate that more business may be conducted on an agency or riskless principal basis, and that market making in certain more illiquid securities may be negatively affected. Given that non-bank broker-dealers are not subject to the rule, certain activities may shift to these entities. Over time, the effects are likely to be more far-reaching than these observations suggest.

Adrian Roseti Initiated in late November 2013 and adopted by the Romanian Parliament on December 17 2013 (to be published upon the President's confirmation), the law regarding the purchase of agricultural lands by non-Romanian EU citizens is setting the ground rules expected for the past seven years, since Romania's accession to EU. Although the purchase of land by non-Romanians is not completely liberalised, the proceedings put in place are clear, swift and friendly for investors.

Gizela Tuhurska The use of email for personal use (such as visiting social network sites and online shopping) is considered the most frequent forms of abuse of company resources. Employers are battling this trend through more consistent enforcement of codes of conduct and by closely monitoring how their employees use work time and resources. This means that various monitoring methods are being put into practice, such as checking employees' web traffic and the emails they send and receive, and even the installation of monitoring cameras. However, as there is fairly strict legislation in Slovakia regarding protection of privacy and personal data, as well as mandatory provisions in the Labour Code, employers' hands are tied to a certain extent and these forms of monitoring can only be employed in compliance with strictly defined conditions. That legislation has been reinforced this year by the adoption of a completely new Act on Personal Data Protection and an amendment to the Labour Code, which expressly governs the matter of monitoring employees in the workplace. Under existing legislation, employers can only employ monitoring in the workplace if there is a compelling reason, whether in respect of protecting the company's property, if the employee handles the company's production technology, or for the sake of safety in technologically difficult production processes. Although the consent of employee representatives (trade unions or works council) is not required for installing a monitoring system, by law the employer must consult them on this matter. Furthermore, no monitoring system can be put into place without notifying the employees as to the extent of the monitoring, how it will be conducted and how long it will last. There are no specifics as to how employees should be notified, but practice has shown that it is best to put it in writing as an internal guideline which all the employees will sign as proof they were made aware of it. That way, in the event of a law suit or an inspection by the Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic, the employer will be able to demonstrate that it notified the employees in compliance with law.

The struggle to regulate China’s growing peer-to-peer lending sector

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett's Patrick Baron and Proskauer Rose's Maximilian Kirchner analyse the new approaches to change of control transactions in bond indentures

Sidley Austin's Michael Sackheim analyses the transaction structures that will and won’t fall afoul of US anti-evasion rules

Will the Destinazione Italia Decree further facilitate financing transactions for Italian issuers?

MiFID 2. That it sounds like the latest Hollywood blockbuster is apt. For, the long-awaited second installment of Europe's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive will have dramatic consequences for the region's securities market.