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As Europe awaits Esma's latest move in the implementation of its Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (Mifid II) some fairly strong theories are doing the rounds. As this month's cover story on page 32 shows, the directive in its current form could dry up liquidity, concentrate trading venues and even kill off European financial centres, depending on who you believe.

Mark Brown and Alex Ping of Al Tamimi & Company look at recent developments in the UAE legal system affecting the financial sector and the establishment of the Abu Dhabi Global Market

Companies will be forced to be more innovative in their funding The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) recent proposal to further limit banks' exposure to a single corporate and connected parties could prompt companies to tap the local debt capital markets. In a March 27 discussion paper, the regulator proposed capping exposure to connected counterparties at 25% of a financial institution's eligible capital base.

Oene Marseille Emir Nurmansyah The central bank of Indonesia, Bank Indonesia, has issued regulation 16/21/2014, which is effective as of January 1 2015, requiring all non-exempt, non-bank entities to comply with certain minimum hedging, liquidity, credit rating, and reporting requirements when they take out foreign loans. The regulation applies to all foreign loans, which is defined broadly to include all rupiah or foreign-currency denominated debts owing by a resident of Indonesia to a non-resident. Resident of Indonesia includes any person or legal entity that is has been or plans to be domiciled in Indonesia for at least one year.

The new Minister of Finance, Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo, presented his first budget on March 23 2015. He qualified the budget as a no-tax budget, although it is perhaps more accurate to describe it as a no-new-tax budget. It is clear that the budget is aimed at boosting growth and investment.

The city-state’s new antitrust regulator released its revised draft guidelines at the end of March and is expected to begin operating later this year

Vicente D Gerochi Arvin Kristopher Razon The Philippine public-private partnership (PPP) programme, which the administration of President Aquino hopes will fast-track infrastructure development, has attracted a lot of interest from local and foreign investors. Nine projects have been awarded since 2010, including the NAIA Expressway, the LRT Line 1 Cavite Extension, the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Terminal, the Automated Fare Collection System, and the public school projects. Aside from these, 11 projects were rolled out in 2014, including the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway, which is the biggest project to date with a value of $2.73 billion. Local government units have also initiated their own PPP projects. With 50 more projects in the pipeline, the PPP programme could be the key to addressing the country's critical infrastructure backlog. However, concerns have been raised as to the sustainability of the programme. Will succeeding administrations continue to support it? Can best practices developed from, and the lessons of, past biddings be institutionalised?

Muharrem Küçük Tolga Çabakli The new regulation on Principles and Procedures Applicable to Factoring Transactions (Regulation) was published by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency on February 4 2015 (Official Gazette 29257). The Regulation includes provisions related to: (i) invoicing; (ii) provision of negotiable instruments; (iii) assignment of future receivables; and (vii) retention of documents. The Regulation aims to prevent any fictive factoring transactions. It is prohibited to enter into any factoring transaction without a genuine invoice or a document which is also treated as the invoice. Banks and factoring companies incorporated in Turkey (Institutions) are required to inspect transactions to verify whether invoices are repeating or recurring, through the Central Invoice Record System. Additionally, if an invoice has been cancelled, clients must notify the Institutions and for the provision of new replacement invoices an undertaking must be provided by clients.

Suspected fraud at a Qingdao's metals warehouse has tightened lenders’ focus on KYC checks and due diligence in trade finance transactions

Sean Doherty, general counsel at Bain Capital addresses the biggest concerns for the US private equity market