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The Turkish Parliament enacted Law No 4632 on Individual Private Pension and Investment Systems on April 7 2001, and this came into effect on October 8 2001, paving the way for the establishment and operation of pension companies and investment funds, individual private pension systems and individual private pension intermediaries.

Nick Ferguson reports on the strategies followed by international firms in Singapore since the country’s joint venture experiment hit trouble

Proposed amendments to the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) corporate governance guidelines were recently published in response to the Saucier Report on corporate governance in Canada. Unlike the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the TSX does not have corporate governance listing standards. Instead, TSX companies are required to disclose their corporate governance system on an annual basis and, where the system differs from the TSX guidelines, to disclose the reasons for the difference.

The Australian Takeovers Panel recently declared a break fee to be unacceptable. The break fee was payable in shares, giving the offeror (Rexadis) the right to acquire a substantial interest in the target company (Ballarat Goldfields) if the shareholders rejected a proposal for Rexadis to buy assets of the company. The Rexadis proposal was one of three competing proposals for the future of Ballarat Goldfields. The Panel considered the break fee was likely to have a coercive effect on shareholders when considering the proposals. A rejection of the Rexadis proposal by shareholders could have diluted shareholdings. The Panel thought it was in the shareholders' best interests to be able to make an unfettered choice on the proposals.

By Thomas Williams

New rules that open China's fund management and securities industries to foreign investment do not remove all barriers to overseas banks. Nicholas Howson and Lester Ross of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison report

In a month that saw the UK's FTSE 100 index fall to its lowest levels since 1997, Great Universal Stores' public sale of a 22.5% stake in clothing company Burberry was a welcome distraction for capital markets teams at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters.

Andersen partners create Bird & Bird German office

The International Primary Markets Association (IPMA) has warned that the EU's plans for greater transparency in its capital markets will encourage companies to list elsewhere. In a letter to the European Commission the association, which represents the views of over 60 international banks operating in the European capital markets, says that "third-country issuers will be driven from EU markets" if the obligations of the new directive are disproportionately burdensome.

With disclosure determining investor confidence, or the lack of it, Canada has decided now is a good time to untangle its confusion of corporate governance rules. Tina Woodside and Kathleen Ritchie of Gowling Lafleur Henderson's Toronto office assess the proposals