As of 3 February 2016, the new Law on Consensual Financial Restructuring (“Law”) will introduce an improved framework for voluntary debt restructuring in Serbia (“Restructuring”). The Law was adopted as a part of a national strategy to address the increasing number of non-performing loans in the country, which was adopted in August 2015 (“Strategy”).[1] The Law will replace the existing Law on Consensual Financial Restructuring of 2011, which produced modest results in practice ...
The Delaware Division of Corporations (the “Division”) recently announced that effective December 1, 2015, its Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) filing office will no longer accept paper UCC filings submitted directly to the State of Delaware via regular mail, courier or fax. The Division will instead require that all UCC filings be submitted to the Division electronically.To read the full alert, click here ...
The September 2015 issue of the International Financial Law Review (IFLR) included an international briefing article by SyCipLaw partner Arlene M. Maneja entitled “Competition law enacted.”Download a PDF copy of the article or read the article online at the IFLR website ...
The Philippine chapter of Getting the Deal Through: Islamic Finance & Markets 2016 was contributed by SyCipLaw Managing Partner Rafael A. Morales with Amer Hussein N. Mambuay. The chapter includes information on policies, legislation and supervision covering Islamic finance in the Philippines, contracting concepts, products, and updates and trends ...
This past year has seen many changes in the community banking industry. Some of these issues we expected and some had more of an impact than maybe we would have thought. As we reflect and look forward to 2016, we asked several of our colleagues to weigh in regarding what we saw, what we expect and how to best prepare for the coming new year. Timothy R ...
For better or worse, lenders have become increasingly familiar with the strange dynamic that is the post-bankruptcy minefield created by their borrowers filing a bankruptcy petition. Immediately, lenders begin thinking about how they can minimize the write-off, how they can reduce exposure, how they can avoid violations of the automatic stay, whether they can convince a borrower to reaffirm debt, and many other questions that often must be analyzed situationally ...
Virtual currencies are once again at the forefront of discussion about top issues facing community banks and the financial industry as a whole. The Independent Community Bankers of America (“ICBA”), a trade association representing more than 6,500 community banks, recently published its list of top issues for the fourth quarter of 2015. Among them were the risks associated with virtual currencies ...
As part of its effort to eliminate the risk of taxpayer-funded bail-outs of European banks, the European Union undertook a new “bail-in” regime beginning on January 1, 2016, implementing rules which require banks and some other market participants in EU member states to write-down, cancel, convert into equity or otherwise modify certain unsecured liabilities if such steps are required to recapitalize the institution.To red the full alert, click here ...
Introduction In 2015 the Belgian banking and finance law landscape underwent certain changesand numerous modifications continue to be expected in 2016. This newsletter highlightscertain changes in EU and Belgian law in the following practice areas: financetransactions; investment funds (undertakings for collective investment); andfinancial institutions. 1 ...
On November 25, 2015, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) published a White Paper for consultation. It is seeking comment on two proposals which, if approved and implemented, would change the current structure for distributing mutual funds in Canada. A “restricted practice” policy and a policy involving directed commissions are being proposed ...
This month, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) traditionally presented their annual transition report at the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) at an event that was attended by Karanović & Nikolić's Banking & Finance partner, Maja Jovančević-Šetka ...
In the past, if you wanted to borrow money you would go to your bank manager, or if your bank couldn’t help you, you approached business angels or institutional investors. Business owners now face a confusing and daunting range of funding options. In the digital age, the options include an ever increasing number of online platforms which flourished following the banking crisis and which seem to offer above market returns in our low interest rate economy ...
The October 2015 issue of the International Financial Law Review (IFLR) included an international briefing article by SyCipLaw partner Maria Jennifer Z. Barreto entitled “Mandatory tender offers.”Read the article online at the IFLR website ...
The Hong Kong Court of First Instance recently considered another claim by a client against a bank arising from the sale of a financial product. The Judgment in Li Kwok Heem John v Standard Chartered International (USA) Limited (formerly known as American Express Bank Limited) was handed down in early January 2016. In a lengthy Judgment, the Court considered a number of issues highly relevant to banks and other institutions engaged in selling financial products ...
During the first half of March, Miloš Vučković, Partner at Karanović & Nikolić, attended the two-day long Distressed Assets Forum in London, UK. The event was a good opportunity to learn about the latest developments in the field of trading non-performing loans (NPL's) on the European market, with many prominent banking, real-estate, advisory, and legal executives appearing as speakers and panellists ...
On April 14, 2016, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (“ISDA”) published a new version of Credit Support Annex to help market participants comply with new margin requirements for uncleared swaps ...
On 22 April 2016, the Financial Services Board (“FSB”) released a set of proposed amendments to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (“JSE”) Derivatives Rules in Board Notice 49 of 2016. Historically, margin has been provided in cash and paid by the client to the JSE member who then pays the JSE. The proposed amendments would allow market participants to post collateral directly to the JSE by pledging securities in accordance with section 39 of the Financial Markets Act, 2012 (“section 39”) ...
The March 2016 issue of the International Financial Law Review (IFLR) included an international briefing article entitled “New securities regulations.” The article was contributed by SyCipLaw partner Melyjane G. Bertillo-Ancheta.Read the article online at the IFLR website ...
It has been announced last week that the European Commission (EC) has published a report on the EU crowdfunding sector, as part of its Capital Markets Union Action Plan. In doing so, the EC has recognised the growing importance of crowdfunding platforms – websites that allow fundraisers to interact with investors and donors – for the improved economic growth and job creation in Europe ...
Martine Samuelian and Virginia Barat, JEANTETSince July 22, 2013, investment fund managers (?managers?) in Canada who wish to raise funds from investors located in member states of the European Union (the ?EU?) have had to consider Directive 2011/61/EU1 (the ?Directive?), dealing with managers of alternative investment funds (?AIFs?) ...
Last week's news reports from Slovenia are letting us know that the Slovenian state holding company (SDH) decided to privatise Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), the country's biggest bank, through initial public offering (IPO) ...
According to recent reports, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has plans of investing more than EUR 3 billion in the Western Balkans region, of which approximately EUR 300 million is assigned to Serbia ...
Contrary to Anglo-Saxon and Northern European countries, French financial institutions have not used asset based lending, both because French security law was perceived as debtor friendly in insolvency proceedings and because French banks usually lend against balance sheets.In the context of credit restrictions, the French government was challenged to foster a reform aimed at facilitating the mobilisation of assets, in particularby SMEs, which have no credit rating ...
The $26bn acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft certainly caught the eye this week.A business that is little more than 14 years old and wasn’t generating operating profits (under GAAP) selling for almost ten times revenue – that’s some deal.Yet it doesn’t take a great deal of investigation into some of the non-financial statistics to see why such an eye watering price might be justifiable:LinkedIn has 430 million members and is growing fast ...
