Welcome

April 2011

Welcome to the first edition of our European Regulatory Update.

We aim to bring you in-depth analysis of the key legal and regulatory reforms which are likely to impact on you doing business in Europe.  We focus on important capital markets, banking and finance, corporate and M&A reforms and issues.

In this edition:

• a Green Paper proposes various options to create a European contract law. Questions are being raised in the UK as to whether this is necessary and whether the proposals are workable;
• changes to the European Directives relating to prospectuses and transparency may have important implications for issuers of securities in EU countries;
• banks and borrowers tussle over the allocation of Basel III costs;
• new deal structures for mergers between European companies have been made possible by the European Cross-Border Mergers Directive. We look at the new "US" style mergers under English law and discuss whether any may be useful for Australian groups with European operations;
• proposed amendments to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive ("MiFID"), which allows European investment firms that comply with various investor protection requirements to provide investment services across Europe under a so called "MiFID passport", raises concerns for non-EU investment firms; and
• we provide a snapshot of other recent and future developments in Europe in our In Brief section.

Best wishes