Sponsored

In August 2017, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources introduced a new regulation which revoked its previous controversial (and short-lived) regulation which had required that the ministry's approval be obtained by sponsors of independent power producers (IPP) before executing any share transfer or change of the IPP's board of directors or commissioners.

In 2014 the Irish parliament passed the Merchant Shipping (Registration of Ships) Act 2014 (the Act) to update the regime for the registration of Irish ships and the regime for registering mortgages over ships. It is intended that the new regime will provide a more efficient, user friendly and accessible regime for commercial ship owners and those involved in financing the construction and purchase of vessels. Among other things the Act provides for the establishment of an electronic ship ownership and mortgage register. It preserves all of the basic protections under the existing regime for banks which have a mortgage over commercial ships. With the exception of one provision, however, the Act has not yet been commenced. Given the potential for the further development of shipping finance in Ireland, it is hoped that the government will soon implement it.

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are now the focus of both the public's and the regulator's attention. ICOs are a digitalised method of raising capital in which an organisation issues tradable digital units (tokens) to finance a specific project or to develop it further. They are exclusively used to fund early stage projects of startups, often without a clear track record and with unclear success probability. In the course of the offering, the investor receives a token from the issuing organisation in exchange for cryptocurrencies (for example, bitcoin) or standard currencies (also referred to as fiat money). Tokens are created on a blockchain and exist as tradable digital units on distributed ledgers as a part of a protocol. For example, the Ethereum blockchain provides not only the cryptocurrency Ether, but also a platform to write smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, which makes it possible for market participants to easily generate and issue their own tokens, mostly on the basis of the ERC-20 token standard.

Orrick finance group, coordinated by Patrizio Messina, assesses the country’s innovative approach to bad loans, ahead of the firm’s upcoming book on the subject

The rescue of two regional Italian lenders was carried out as a liquidation, not a resolution, which could undermine the credibility of EU rules on bank failures

The EU member state has amended its securitisation law to boost transactions regarding impaired receivables

On October 1 2017, the amendments to the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act will take effect. The Act aims to develop foreign transactions appropriately, and maintain peace and security in Japan and other countries through providing for minimum necessary control and coordination of foreign transactions.

The worst economic disaster since the great depression of 1929 took American and European banks by storm in 2008. The US, EU and Russia, among others, had to step in to save some of their banks from bankruptcy. Even certain German banks, symbols of the country's strength and prosperity, were on the verge of collapsing. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this briefing is to provide a high-level summary of the mechanisms in place to cope with the bankruptcy of a foreign bank in Switzerland.

A recent wave of public offering activity points to a re-opening of the country's equity markets to foreign investment