I. Legal Framework The banking business in the Republic of Panama is regulated by Decree-Law No. 9 of February 26, 1998 and its amendments (the “Banking Law”). The Banking Law created the Superintendency of Banks (the “Superintendency”), which is the government agency in charge of supervising and overseeing banking operations and the exercise of the banking business in the Republic of Panama ...
I. Background The need to amend the Panamanian maritime legislation, amongst others, came as an effort to incorporate long standing practices that had been developed but were not regulated in our national laws, to promote the registration of vessels in our registry by attracting new tonnage and rewarding both loyalty to the flag and compliance with safety standards of vessels already registered in Panama ...
Technical Resolution 26 – FACPCE Dated March 20, 2009 the FACPCE (Argentine Federation of Economic Sciences Professional Boards) approved Technical Resolution No. 26 “Adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards of the Board” effective as from the years commenced after January 1st, 2011, not admitting an earlier application ...
The establishment and operation of many Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) involves cooperation amongst industry participants, including those who may be competitors in other aspects of their businesses. It is very important that participants in CRCs remember that the prohibitions against anti-competitive conduct in the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) (TPA) will apply to the CRC collaboration ...
Reduction in Income Tax for Publicly Owned Companies The Ministry of Finance recently issued regulation No.238/PMK.03/2008 of 2008 regarding the Procedures for and Supervision of the Granting of Tariff Reductions to Local Entity Tax Payers which are Publicly Owned Companies ...
New Law on Aviation In order to keep up with the development of the aviation industry in Indonesia, on 17 December 2008, the House of Representatives passed the Bill on Aviation. This Bill came in force on 12 January 2009 as Law No 1 of 2009 regarding Aviation (“Law 1”) ...
Indonesia has been described as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. In 2008, the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index stated that Indonesia ranked 130th least transparent out of 180 countries. However, the continued existence of the Corruption Court in Indonesia which has tried many corruption cases and is trying to improve Indonesia’s anti corruption activities, is now under threat ...
Commission adopts temporary State aid 'credit crunch' framework The European Commission has adopted a temporary state aid framework, designed to help tackle the spiralling negative effects of the 'credit crunch' on the real economy. Under the framework, Member States can - after notifying the Commission - put into effect a range of aid schemes aimed at helping otherwise sound companies that are finding it difficult to access funding ...
ALTIUS contributed to a publication on International Acquisition Finance accross mutiple jurisdictions. The volume provides counsel with a full insight into the law and regulation across numerous jurisdictions. Johan De Bruycker, Caroline Wildemeersch and Kasper Van Landeghem from ALTIUS' Banking & Finance team untangle the complications of debt funding regimes for the Belgian jurisdiction. 1 ...
Best Practices & Standards The hedge fund industry has experienced trying times over the past few months. Year-end redemption requests have flooded the sector. Scandals such as the so-called "ponzi" scheme allegedly carried out by Bernard Madoff resulting in billions of dollars in losses have shaken the industry ...
Following certain onsite inspections, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a Circular in October 2008 setting out various standards of conduct and control procedures that the SFC views as being "generally expected" of a Hong Kong-licensed hedge fund manager (HKHFM) ...
1. What types of collateral are available? Real estate, operating and other licence rights or concessions, leaseholds, buildings, moveable property, contractual lights, receivables, shares, securities, onshore and offshore bank accounts, entire enterprises, after-acquired property, proceeds from investments and the sale of collateral are all available ...
Family Intervention Tenancies (FITs) are a new type of tenancy to be introduced by Sections 297-298 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008. They will be another tool for registered providers (the new term for both Registered Social Landlords and local authorities to tackle anti-social behaviour ...
Today when financial experts are busy in measuring the depth of present financial turmoil, layman is cursing Governments and experts are blaming sub-prime mortgage payment defaulters but no-body in the economic fraternity could appreciate that it was a policy failure. Moreover, no one in the financial world could imagine the enormous size of the trouble that lending on sub-prime would bring the world’s biggest financial catastrophe of the century ...
As a consequence of the complexity of Hong Kong’s disclosure of interests regime, local substantial shareholders and global investment houses alike frequently fall foul of its provisions. Even robust monitoring and reporting systems can fail to cater to idiosyncrasies of the Hong Kong regime ...
Following consultation with national competition authorities and the public, the European Commission has published enforcement priorities guidelines, which it will follow when applying Article 82 to exclusionary conduct by dominant companies. Throughout the guidelines, the Commission reiterates that Article 82 should protect competition and consumers – rather than individual competitors (an approach previously advocated by Commissioner Kroes) ...
On 16 September 2008, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) gave a preliminary ruling in joined cases C-468/06 - C-478/06 specifying that a refusal by a pharmaceutical undertaking that holds a dominant position on a relevant pharmaceutical market to supply wholesalers with a view to impeding parallel export of such wholesalers from one Member State to other Member States constitutes an abuse of a dominant market position under Article 82 of the EC Treaty ...
Bolivian law contemplates two procedures by which local companies with financial difficulties, are ultimately obliged to sell their assets in order to satisfy existing payment obligations, be it through a mandatory dissolution and liquidation or through a judicial bankruptcy procedure. I ...
As national governments have taken increasingly drastic steps to shore up their banking systems so the Commission has been working overtime dealing with the State aid fallout. Many of the measures taken by Member States could distort competition - a serious worry in the current volatile climate. Against this backdrop, the Commission has been keen to stress that it wants to work with Member States to ensure financial stability ...
Recently, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced a new program to facilitate the issuance of shortterm commercial paper (“CP”) by eligible issuers. The program was launched on Monday, October 27, 2008. The program is being administered by a new special purpose financing vehicle (“SPV”) that is referred to as the Commercial Paper Financing Facility, or “CPFF ...
The SFC recently issued a press release and a circular on risk disclosure. The circular reminds issuers of retail investment products, including authorised funds, of their duty to include in offering documents sufficient relevant risk information for investors to make an informed investment decision, and for marketing materials to be "clear, fair and present a balanced picture with adequate and prominent risk disclosure" ...
A new Swedish Competition Act will enter into force on 1 November 2008. The Act was passed by parliament on 11 June 2008. The new legislation means further harmonisation with EC competition rules and it also introduces a number of new features in order to enhance cartel enforcement. One of the new features is the introduction of trading prohibitions. The rules regarding fines will become both clearer and stricter in an aim to enhance legal certainty ...
In its decision of 10 September 2008, the Market Court held that eight retailers of Volvo and Renault cars in southern Sweden were guilty of fixing sales prices and discounts on new cars, dividing the market for new car sales and fixing acquisition and sales prices on used cars. This behaviour was deemed to constitute such a limitation of competition as is prohibited under Section 6 of the Competition Act and Article 81 of the EC Treaty ...
A few years ago, Rick Rein got a call from a Chicago-area bank that had lost $1 million to a con artist who cashed a fake check that looked so authentic it easily passed through the bank's computer system. The fraudster wired the money to an obscure bank in Florida, then out of the country before the bank realized a month later the check was phony. Mr ...
