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Yuri Suzuki of Atsumi & Sakai looks at the Japanese government’s Growth Strategy and how it might reformulate financial regulations to foster fintech development in financial services

Prager Dreifuss lawyers explain how companies and banks can best protect themselves from the threat of cyberattacks

At a time when Macau is continuously striving to develop economic diversification and strengthen its role as a world leisure and tourism centre, the new draft Hotel Business Law, which is still under discussion in the Macau Legislative Council, is designated to liberalise and diversify the hospitality industry in various ways.

On November 30 2018, the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds was amended in order to introduce new methods of verifying the identity of customers. The Act aims to prevent services provided by specified business operators under the Act, such as financial institutions, from being used for money laundering by criminal organisations.

Market players will have to keep abreast of changes as the country ushers in a flurry of corporate legal updates. Francisco Lim, senior partner of ACCRA Law, reviews the developments.

On June 27 2019, the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) issued the third version of the private equity principles (principles). The principles continue to reiterate that the essence of an effective private equity partnership is built on the alignment of interests, governance and transparency; however, this third version also addresses new issues.

Like most financial engineering techniques, securitisation is not without risk. The complexity inherent in securitisation can impair investors' ability to monitor risk, and competitive securitisation markets are prone to sharp declines in underwriting standards. Furthermore, off-balance sheet accounting treatment for securitisations coupled with guarantees from the issuer can make it challenging to assess exposures, encouraging issuers to take on excessive credit risk. Even the most ardent advocates of securitisation would accept that securitisation played an important role in the US subprime mortgage crisis that led to the global financial crisis of 2008.

Atsumi & Sakai partners Yuri Suzuki, Takafumi Ochiai, Ryosuke Oue, Naoki Kanehisa and Kenichi Tanizaki examine Japan’s regulatory repositioning on fintech in the wake of crypto- thefts

Japan’s regulatory sandbox was launched in June 2018 and is a cornerstone of the country’s efforts to promote fintech. Ryosuke Oue of Atsumi & Sakai reviews the progress so far