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Distributors of foreign QIFs must soon adapt to the revised Swiss rules. Here’s what they need to do

Davis Polk & Wardwell won the Americas law firm of the year at the annual IFLR Americas awards ceremony held in New York last night - becoming the first to win the coveted award two years in a row

Iñigo Rubio Lasarte It seems that Spain may see a solution in the coming weeks to the nine Spanish highways that filed for insolvency within recent months. The Government is working on a plan to finally rescue the insolvent concessions, with the acceptance of the financial lenders. According to various government sources, the proposal consists of nationalising the insolvent concessions (AP-41, R-2, R-4, R-3 and R5, AP-36, Aucosta, Ciralsa, M-12 and Ausur) by contributing the equity of the concessions to a public company. After the Government takes control, it will agree on a restructuring of the debt with the financial lenders, including substantial write-offs. The plan will need the support of both the equity sponsors and the financial lenders, and it is here that a substantial discrepancy may appear between the Spanish and foreign lenders.

David Johnson, K&L Gates Christopher Tan, K&L Gates Debaroh Bean, K&L Gates Alastair MacAulay, Clifford Chance K&L GATES was particularly active in the region's laterals market last month, with new hires in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. In Hong Kong, arguably the most high profile of the three moves was the capture of securities expert David Johnson from Allen & Overy. The new partner specialises in equity and debt issues, and also acts on broader corporate matters including acquisitions and privatisations. In Singapore the firm added corporate counsel Christopher Tan from Allens Arthur Robinson. His practice focuses on M&A and restructuring, with a specialisation in work emerging from China, Mongolia and Vietnam.

Freddy Karyadi Oene Marseille The Government has recently issued several new Ministry of Finance (MoF) regulations (PMK) relating to general tax provisions, in order to improve the implementation of Government Regulation 74/2011 (PP-74), which is the main implementing regulation of the General Tax Provisions and Procedures Law (KUP Law). The MoF seems to want to streamline the prevailing regulations by putting as much content as possible in the PMKs to minimise the issuance of lower-ranked tax regulations. The tax audit is one of the new MoF regulations which will be discussed below.

Carlos Fradique Méndez Adriana Ospina-Jiménez Leading global financial institutions, asset managers and multi-product investment advisers are among the foreign entities that are increasingly showing their interest in promoting their cross-border, financial and securities-related services to Colombian investors. These foreign entities are especially targeting Colombian pension funds, the most important institutional investors in the Colombian financial sector, as they have approximately $65 billion AUM and growing at a 25% rate per year. The growing interest of these foreign entities is mainly due to (i) Colombia's sound economic growth (preliminary figures indicate that real GDP grew by approximately 4.8% during the first quarter, 4.9% during the second quarter and 2.1% during the third quarter of 2012); (ii) Colombia's high level of foreign direct investment; (iii) its reliable legal framework (as indicated in the World Banks's Doing Business 2013: "Colombia is a regional leader in narrowing the gap with the world's most efficient regulatory practice"); and, (iv) the upgrade to investment-grade status in 2011 by Moody's Investor Service and Fitch Ratings.

Oscar Arrús Over the past 10 years, infrastructure and public service projects in Peru have increased both in number and in size. These projects are mostly carried out through concessions: government contracts signed with private companies through which they are granted the right to operate such projects and receive the cash flows they generate. The start-up capital required to perform these contracts is usually provided by private investors, either through offerings in the securities market or syndicated loans provided by multilateral entities or private banks, and secured by the cash flow generated by such projects.

Italy’s high yield bond rules aim to open the country’s debt markets. Here’s what prospective bondholders need to know about the new regime

As US and UK exchanges loosen listing rules, Asia is cracking the regulatory whip to improve market integrity. Which is the best approach for long-term success?

Italy has become the latest EU nation to introduce a financial transaction tax. But who do the rules apply to, and how will the tax will be levied?