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English law distinguishes between fixed and floating charges. The essential distinction is that, unlike the holder of a fixed charge, on an insolvency the floating charge-holder ranks behind preferential creditors (consisting principally of the claims of the government for unpaid taxes and of employees for unpaid salary). For this and other reasons, the creditor of an insolvent company will usually try to establish a fixed charge over the relevant assets of the insolvent company.

On January 1 1998, new regulations of the National Securities Depository of KDPW (Krajowy Depozyt Papierow Wartosciowych) entered into force. These new regulations became necessary due to the new Public Trading and Securities Act, published on October 3 1997 and which entered into force at the beginning of the year (see International Financial Law Review, May 1998 page 58). The regulations of the National Securities Depository describe the basic conditions of the deposit and clearing procedures in the field of public securities trading.

A newly proposed Accounting Act is scheduled to be adopted by the Norwegian parliament before the summer break and to go into effect on January 1 1999. This will involve major changes to the financial year, dividend distribution and how assets are reported in mergers.

To reduce private expenditure and a growing balance of payments deficit, the Danish government has presented an economic constraint. The initiative includes a reduction of the interest allowance and increased taxation on real property.

Cyprus is not an offshore centre. An offshore centre has no double tax treaties and is not a signatory to international conventions. Moreover, it is used by wealthy individuals or international corporations for brass plate structures and for sheltering their wealth without tax liabilities.

In a recent judgement, the Dubai Court of Cassation gave a narrow interpretation to the obligations resulting from a personal guarantee of a revolving credit facility.

In Great Northern Insurance Co v Mount Vernon Fire Insurance Co, No. 97-7989, 1998 US App LEXIS 8413 (2d Cir May 1 1998), the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit certified a question to the New York Court of Appeals regarding the interpretation of the "other insurance" clause in a commercial general liability policy. The "other insurance" clause is a standard provision commonly found in commercial liability policies which typically comes into play when multiple insurance policies cover a single loss. It should apply only to disputes between insurance companies over how much each must pay for a particular loss. Great Northern gives New York's highest court the chance to confirm that "other insurance" clauses should not be employed to cut a policyholder's right to the full limit of an insurer's liability for a covered loss.

To promote Singapore as a centre for international capital fundraising, the government-appointed Corporate Finance Committee has proposed a radical new regulatory regime in a consultative paper, shifting the emphasis to a predominantly disclosure-based philosophy of regulation, similar to the US system. Key points include:

New Zealand's personal property securities law has long been criticized by lawyers and financiers as being overly complicated and lacking in certainty. The absence of an integrated registration system for charges over personal property has created confusion and the additional expense involved has proved a disincentive to the use of personal property assets as collateral for all types of financing facilities. These problems have arisen because New Zealand's personal property securities laws are set out in a number of different statutes which provide different systems of registration and different priority rules depending on the nature of the property, the type of legal entity giving the security and the form of the security itself.

In April 1998 the government submitted a bill to parliament regarding a reform of the Finnish Companies Act to enable the conversion to the euro in private and public limited companies during the transition period between January 1 1999 and December 31 2001 and set the rules governing the move to no par value (NPV) shares in limited companies.