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Till Spillmann Adrian Koller Pursuant to a decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court rendered in October 2014, up-stream loans extended by a Swiss company must be entered into on arm's length terms. If they are not provided on arm's length terms, up-stream loans may constitute de facto distributions and, therefore, may only be granted for an amount not exceeding the lender's freely distributable reserves. In addition, the court held that, as a result, the lender's ability for future dividend distributions is reduced by an amount corresponding to the loan amount. The court also imposed stringent requirements that needed to be met to satisfy the arm's length test. According to the view of most legal scholars, this decision constitutes a change in practice. It has raised a number of queries both at Swiss companies and among practitioners and scholars in Switzerland.

Is Alibaba's Jack Ma replicating Amazon's Jeff Bezos' successful Washington Post buyout in Asia? Or is it merely a pipedream?

Maurício Santos Betina Sanglard In November 2015, the Brazilian National Monetary Council issued Resolutions 4444 and 4449 with the goal of attracting investments from insurance and local reinsurance companies, pension funds and capitalisation companies (institutional investors) to infrastructure projects.

The Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) has issued amendments that significantly loosen the country's system of exchange rate controls. The move signals the further liberalisation of the national economy and is expected to stimulate its capital markets.

The European Commission (EC), by its very nature, loves to harmonise. From integrated capital markets and bank capital requirements, to its restrictive shipping law; harmonisation is a validatory process for those sat in Brussels. It's not always the right process though. As this month's cover story (p26) by staff writer Lizzie Meager discovers, an EU insolvency regime is not the way to solve the headaches caused by disjointed jurisdictional systems.

The UK's new mandatory disclosure rules for unlisted companies are at best another compliance hoop to jump through. But at their worst, they could be a deterrent to investment.

Counsel in China have high hopes for the proposed overhaul of the country's credit assessment system, but stress that a host of other regulatory issues need to be ironed out, particularly surrounding wealth management.

Olivier Vermeulen Gabrielle Wong Benjamin Büttner It has been a turbulent 12 months for the Baltics, and on January 1 there was yet another twist in the legal sector's tale. The remaining lawyers from Borenius – following the departure of a team of 13 in Lithuania to Sorainen in September – across all three countries broke their ties with the Helsinki-based firm and joined together with Cobalt. This created the largest Baltic firm by headcount – around 180 lawyers – and severed the final formal tie between a Nordic firm and the Baltics.

Cyprus takes home the NPL prize The Cypriot government has passed a suite of legislative reforms in an attempt to confront the non-performing loan (NPL) problem plaguing its economy.

Pedro Cortés Calvin Chui Even as 2015 was winding down and coming to an end, the government of the Macau Special Administrative Region was busy putting together a robust draft law to amend various aspects of the legal framework for lease agreements. At present, the rules set out in the Macau Civil Code (1999) govern lease agreements.