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Rose Marie M King-Dominguez In a May 8 2014 opinion, the Philippines' Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) advised that the provision of 'an online platform intended to increase the sale of a particular product' is a mass media activity. Under the Constitution, ownership and operation of mass media enterprises is wholly reserved to Filipino citizens.

Kyohei Mizukoshi The Financial Services Agency of Japan (JFSA) published the amendment to the Guidelines for the Disclosure of Corporate Affairs (Disclosure Guidelines) on August 27 2014. The Disclosure Guidelines do not constitute statutory laws of Japan, but provide matters to be considered in applying the laws and regulations concerning corporate disclosure, including the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act of Japan (FIEA). This amendment abolishes the waiting period for the securities registration for certain 'well-known companies' and clarifies which acts do not constitute a 'pre-filing offer'. Generally, where a listed company conducts a public offering, it must file a securities registration statement (SRS), then wait for seven days before it can issue its securities to investors. This waiting period is designed to give investors time to decide, based on the information disclosed, whether to acquire and purchase the securities. Under the amended Disclosure Guidelines, only in cases involving the filing of an SRS by certain well-known companies, the SRS becomes effective on the date of filing and such companies can issue their securities to investors from the filing date. This exemption is available to certain types of equity offerings by well-known companies whose shares are listed on a stock exchange in Japan and whose market capitalisation is ¥10 billion ($93 million) or above. Additionally, this exemption is available to a non-Japanese company which meets these requirements.

Jaime de la Torre On May 7 2013, the new alternative fixed-income securities market (MARF) was created in Spain through a resolution passed by the AIAF management company's board of directors (governing body). The MARF enables companies (whose circumstances prevent them from accessing official secondary markets) to obtain financing through the issue of fixed-income securities. The MARF is legally configured as a multilateral trading system, directed and managed by the governing body. The Spanish Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV) supervises MARF's governing body.

Soonghee Lee Hyun Suk Jung In early 2011, the prosecutor's office indicted employees of securities firms and scalpers on the charges that, in connection with transactions of the equity-linked warrants (ELW) listed on the Korea Exchange, unlawful devices, schemes and artifices were used. Based on the findings of the prosecutor's office, the employees provided unlawful means prohibited by the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act to the scalpers (such as access to an internal electronic network and exclusive server of the securities firms that are unknown to ordinary investors, implementation of a scalper database, opening of preliminary ledgers, and prioritised provision of market quotations). Both the courts of first instance and appellate courts rendered not guilty decisions for the defendants of the case. The Supreme Court rendered final decisions to the same effect in early 2014. The prosecutor's office claimed that throughout the proceedings: (i) the services provided in connection with this case violated the principle that there must not be any difference in the speed of processing orders; (ii) the defendants provided the services of this case exclusively to a small number of scalpers without notifying other customers; and (iii) there is a substantial likelihood that the profits made by scalpers who used the services of the case in the ELW market would lead to losses of ordinary investors. In response to the above claims, the defendants responded as follows: (i) the services that the defendants provided are a form of direct market access (DMA) service that are not only allowed worldwide, but which are widespread; (ii) it is a common practice even in Korea for a securities firm to provide a system with faster processing speed for some of the orders, and this is a fact well known to investors. The Supreme Court's decision stated the following: (i) there is no such principle that requires parity in the speed of processing orders; (ii) it is not found that the securities firms provided the scalpers with faster services clandestinely; (iii) there is no risk that the faster services at issue may endanger the profit of other investors; (iv) given that there is no technological method for synchronising the speed of the services, if criminal liabilities are imposed on the acts of the present case, not only would it not solve the problem, but it would further compound the chaos and indiscriminately have a negative effect on various services that may be introduced as a result of development in telecommunications technology.

Oene Marseille Emir Nurmansyah The People's Representative Council of Indonesia (DPR) has issued draft legislation on banking which would cap foreign ownership in Indonesian banks to 40% and require the incorporation of any foreign bank operating in Indonesia. In addition to restricting foreign ownership to 40%, the draft legislation would also require the Financial Services Authority (OJK) to report to a specialised forum in the event that foreign ownership in a bank is less than 40%. It appears that the 40% ownership threshold is considered a desirable goal by the Council, although its exact intention in requiring this threshold is still unclear.

Supattra Sathapornnanon Thai law governing surety and mortgages is found in the Civil and Commercial Code (CCC) and has been relatively stable over the years. Amendments were passed by the National Legislative Assembly on October 2 2014, which in due course will be enacted into law. The amendments were made to provide better protection and fairness to a surety and mortgagor who are not principal debtors.

Isil Ökten Mustafa Yigit Örnek The new Regulation on Undertaking of Liabilities by the Turkish Treasury (Regulation) entered into force on April 19 2014. It was based on article 8 (A) of the Law on the Regulation of Public Financing and Debt Management 4749 (Law 4749). This new Regulation provides that build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects, education projects through the build-lease-transfer model and public private partnership (PPP) projects in the health sector can benefit from the debt assumption undertaking. The scope of the debt assumption undertaking includes the partial or whole repayment of financial obligations of the project companies, including those arising from the principal loan provided for relevant investment and services and related derivative products. The debt assumption undertaking consists of: (i) the whole amount of financing costs; and (ii) (a) if the project agreement is terminated due to project company's fault, 85% and (b) if the project agreement is terminated due to reasons not attributable to the project company, 100% of the loan amount. The following conditions need to be met for the granting of a debt assumption undertaking:

A failed challenge to the CFTC’s extraterritorial reach has caused disappointment. But Linklaters' Caird Forbes-Cockell, Noah Melnick and Edward Ivey explain why the regulator’s new chief could be the silver lining

Major banks have signed an Isda stay protocol to assist the orderly resolution of a troubled financial institution. Jay Taylor of Taylor Louis asks how far this goes in addressing too-big-to-fail

The EC's equivalency decisions for Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore’s central CCP regulatory regimes is a positive move for the region