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The political crisis embroiling Russia and Ukraine has created new opportunities for foreign and local banks in the region. Mayer Brown's Mayank Gupta and Trevor Wood analyse the areas to watch

France's stock market watchdog has confirmed that it will not implement regulations on high frequency trading (HFT) that would clash with Europe-wide rules.

The $1 billion deal signals the growing importance of Islamic finance for Muslim-majority countries

Soonghee Lee Youngwoo Park The Korea Exchange (KRX) opened the marketplace for exchange traded notes (ETN) on November 17 2014. ETN are derivative combined securities that guarantee the same rate of return as that of the underlying index at maturity. They are simpler than equity-linked securities (ELS) in structure and tradable prior to maturity. Since they are derivative combined securities, ETN have the same legal characteristics as equity linked warrants (ELW) and ELS, but differ in structure from ELW and ELS because they are a product linked to the underlying index. Moreover, although ETN provide the return in a similar manner as exchange traded funds (ETF) since both are indexed to the underlying asset, ETN differ from ETF in that they provide a return based on the underlying index at maturity after subtracting the fund fees. Participants of the capital market anticipate that the ETN market, introduced in an effort to advance the Korean derivative products market, will satisfy ordinary investors' demand for a variety of new financial products in the existing low growth, low interest rate environment. Participants also believe that securities firms would be afforded an opportunity to increase their profitability and competitiveness from more varied product offerings. The backdrop for introduction of the ETN marketplace can be explained as follows. The number of investors who are seeking medium risk and rate of return, rather than traditional products such as stocks and bonds, increased in the rapidly aging society. In addition, there arose the need to develop new financial products (such as index linked structured products) so that ordinary investors could make investments in more varied product offerings. Commentators anticipate that there will be more investment opportunities for ordinary investors because the introduction of ETN allows direct investment with a smaller investment amount in various asset classes, while it was previously difficult for such investors to understand and compare the profit structures of derivative combined securities products. Moreover, if index-linked structured products that were previously traded outside the exchange begin to be traded on the exchange, then issues such as misselling, system risk, and low price transparency would be resolved. This would lead to better protection for investors, and ultimately, the creation of profitable products for securities firms. On the other hand, while various pensions and funds are important institutional investors that make the market and provide liquidity as liquidity providers, it has been reported that pensions and funds would not participate in the ETN market in the early stage of the launch because of internal fund management regulations, tax issues, and lack of perceived attractiveness of the market. Therefore, appropriate measures need to be provided to deal with such issues.

Pedro Cortés Marta Mourão The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (Forum) urges jurisdictions to adopt high standards of transparency and information exchange in tax matters. The Forum has raised two red flags in Macau, one of its members. The first one is related to bearer shares, which are adverse to fiscal transparency; and the second one is the lack of substance of the concept 'permanent activity' provided for in the Macau Commercial Code for those companies that have not been incorporated under the laws of Macau and do not have their main office in the region. Given this assessment, to achieve a positive result arising in the third phase of the Forum's evaluation (which is of paramount importance for Macau's position in the external markets), the Macau Government, through the Law Reform and International Law Bureau and the Financial Services Bureau, prepared a document released for public consultation in October 2014.

Electronic platforms could save corporate bond trading from a liquidity drought. But will they usurp banks?

M&A is back with a bang. As always, IFLR1000’s annual rankings identify the law firms that are shaping the markets to watch

Cao Minh Thi The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has amended part of the Securities Listing Regulations as of October 31 2014. The amendment is intended to change the listing requirements for stock acquisition rights as a rights offering. A rights offering is a capital increase method using the gratis allotment of stock acquisition rights to existing shareholders. A rights offering where an issuer and a securities company enter into an agreement by which the securities company commits to acquire and exercise the stock acquisition rights that are not exercised within a certain period is called a commitment-type rights offering, while a rights offering under which there is no such agreement is called a non-commitment-type rights offering.

The Atlantic Council’s Chris Brummer explains why the organisation is a firm supporter of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and how recent political developments are impacting negotiations

Mauritius has been lauded for giving its citizens a high level of access to banking facilities: the island economy boasts the highest level of financial inclusion in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).