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Discussion about how to tackle market structure and the opaque activities of dark pools has left one group feeling a little left out: the regulated.

Ignacio Buil Aldana José Luis Lucena Spanish debt is in the spotlight, and it will continue to be for a while – no market player questions this. However, one preoccupation remains: can equity be crammed-down under Spanish insolvency law? Unfortunately, the answer for the moment is no. Existing regulations do not provide lenders with tools to forcefully cram down the equity in those cases where the latter has no interest. In fact, Spanish debt-for-equity swaps need the consent of shareholders at all times.

Daniel Bader Ruth Bloch-Riemer In a popular referendum on November 30 2014, Swiss voters decided by a clear majority of 59.2% on the retention of the lump-sum taxation regime on a federal, cantonal and communal level. A separate vote in the Canton of Geneva had the same result on the cantonal level in Geneva: a majority of 68.7% of the Geneva voters decided on the retention of the lump-sum taxation regime on the Geneva cantonal level. Besides the retention of the lump-sum taxation regime, Swiss voters also clearly decided against the so-called Ecopop referendum, which would have foreseen restrictive requirements for immigration to Switzerland.

Banji Adenusi As a form of financial derivative involving the sale of securities, repos are central to the provision of liquidity in the financing and trading of treasury securities. The Nigerian repo market, however, remains largely dominated by the money and interbank markets as the main liquidity providers. With their global attractiveness, the primary concerns in Nigeria relate to the validity, enforceability of netting provisions, transfer of title and recharacterisation of repos. Bearing in mind that repos can sometimes be said to operate in a manner similar to secured credit transactions, perhaps these concerns are worth highlighting. In Nigeria, the laws applicable to derivatives are equally applicable to repos (section 315 of the Investment and Securities Act), while securities lending appears to be a generic term encompassing a host of transactions including repos. The approach favoured by the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is to interpret all types of dealings involving securities as falling within the ambit of section 315. The validity of these transactions is guaranteed, further taking into consideration their non-classification as unlawful gaming contracts.

Bank of China's RMB 39.94 billion ($6.5 billion) additional tier 1 (AT1) offering proved the depth of Asia's capital markets. The bank's innovative structure has also set a precedent for the rest of the industry.

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.

Luis Gabriel Morcillo Maria Camila Ordoñez To facilitate access of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to local capital markets, the Colombian Ministry of Finance enacted Decree 1019 of 2014 to alleviate registration burdens in the Colombian alternative equity and fixed income market (Alternative Market, or Segundo Mercado). This reform will allow smaller companies and not recurrent issuers to finance their operations through capital markets. This will offer attractive returns, as are usual from these type of issuers, to institutional investors (those authorised to invest in the Segundo Mercado). Through the reform, when the Superintendence of Finance has validated the registry requirements, its supervision powers are transferred to the issuer, its directors and to all its financial and legal advisors, in a such a way that all involved advisors will be liable for the entirety and completeness of the information disclosed in the offering documents. With this new procedure, registration periods are considerably reduced and it is in the best interest of SMEs to set up a diligent offering process and sufficient documentation to obtain an automatic registry before the National Registry of Securities and Issuers (RNVE) within a few days of filing to launch the offering.

Elias Neocleous The Memorandum of Understanding that Cyprus concluded with its international creditors in 2013 committed the government to introducing a so-called Foreclosure Law. This legislation seeks to amend the procedure for the forced sale of mortgaged property to allow for private auctions. The initial target date was the end of 2013, but the deadline was extended to require legislation to be enacted by mid-2014 and implemented by the end of the year. The existing system allowed recalcitrant debtors to delay the realisation of mortgaged property for years by means of strategic applications to the courts for orders to cancel auctions, by objecting to the reserve price set by the Land Registry or on a number of procedural grounds. This would mean that the average time taken to enforce a mortgage would be 10 years, and a determined debtor could extend the delay well beyond that.

Panagiotis Drakopoulos Far from the saturated marketplace of Europe, the economies of south-east Europe (SEE) have managed to secure a relatively stable growth potential through targeted financial policy reforms. The years before the financial crisis saw a large investment boom in the region by means of capital inflows, inevitably fuelling market bubbles, such as the one that popped six years ago in the Romanian real estate market. Despite the fact that the financial and liquidity crisis may have bucked the upward trend in the real-estate sector, SEE remains a top European destination for short-term and long-term investment opportunities, multiplying its regional growth dynamics. Regionwise, SEE countries seem to border the rest of Europe both in terms of distance and mentality, as opposed to Asian and African countries.

Julian M Hashim The 2015 budget tabled on October 10 2014 carried the theme People Economy, aimed at improving the well-being of its citizens, and it outlined seven main strategies to achieve that. This article will focus on the first strategy, which is to strengthen economic growth, and in which the Government will continue to provide a conducive and comprehensive ecosystem to accelerate domestic and foreign investment. Among the measures introduced is the strengthening of the Islamic financial market. There will be an introduction of a shariah-compliant investment product called the Investment Account Platform (IAP), which will be implemented with a start-up fund of RM150 million ($45 million). The IAP will provide opportunities to investors in financing entrepreneurial activities and developing viable small and medium enterprises. The IAP will serve as a platform to attract institutional and high net worth individuals to invest in the Islamic financial markets. Individual investors will be given income tax exemption on profits earned from qualifying investments for three consecutive years.