Regions

Executive Summary: Memorandum published by the General Director of the Israel Antitrust Authority earlier this year proposed reform that reflects a considerable expansion in the application of Israeli antitrust law to mergers between foreign corporations, as well as mergers involving Israeli and foreign corporations (including the acquisition of an Israeli corporation by a foreign corporation … Continued

Executive Summary: U.S. public pension funds – longstanding proponents of corporate governance and shareholder proposal-style activism in the U.S. – are now allocating increasing amounts of capital throughout the world, and increasingly considering whether and how to globally apply their strategies and tactics for increasing shareholder power, changing governance norms, influencing boards and management teams … Continued

Highlights: Toward the end of 2014, the Belgian M&A market became increasingly active.  Due to several factors such as a weaker euro, fear on the part of business owners for a tax shift and greater willingness of the banks to finance acquisitions, the positive trend of enhanced M&A activity continued in H1 2015. Private equity … Continued

Highlights: Foreign investment projects in China are categorized into encouraged, permitted, restricted and prohibited projects.  The 2014 revisions to the Catalogue of Industries for Guiding Foreign Investment were made with the intention to substantially reduce the restricted projects, to loosen the restrictions on foreign shareholding percentage, and to primarily promote the opening-up of the manufacturing … Continued

MAIN ARTICLE Korea had the strongest and most active M&A market in 2014 during the past five years with a 47% increase in announced deal volume from USD 64.8 billion in 2013 to USD 95 billion in 2014 (based on Bloomberg statistics), and Kim & Chang had the privilege of advising on transactions accounting for … Continued

Executive Summary: 2014 witnessed significant changes to the laws and regulations governing public tender offers in France.  Among the more notable changes were: “passivity rule”: the reversal of France’s 2006 opt-in to the Takeover Directive’s version of the English “passivity rule”; double voting rights: the default rule for listed companies now provides double voting rights for all … Continued

Executive Summary: While most merger transactions have been passed by the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) without conducting a detailed investigation, the CCI has escalated recent combinations to such greater review.  This article examines the procedure of the CCI in relation to so-called Phase II inquiries in proposed combinations and highlights some of the teething … Continued

Executive Summary: China’s Ministry of Commerce released for comment major legislation, the draft Foreign Investment Law, to overhaul the regulation of foreign direct investment.  The article below discusses how these major changes could impacting foreign investment enterprises and variable interest entities. MAIN ARTICLE The best way to understand the draft Foreign Investment Law (“Draft”), circulated by … Continued

Highlights: M&A was robust in 2014, hitting several noteworthy post-crisis high-water marks: total global volume reached US$3.5 trillion, cross-border volume reached US$1.3 trillion (37% of the total) and cross-border M&A involving U.S. companies reached US$770 billion (45% of which was incoming). We expect current trends to continue in 2015, driven, in several key regions, by … Continued

Executive Summary: We are pleased to share with you Davies Governance Insights 2014, the fourth edition of our annual analysis of important trends and developments in corporate governance for Canadian public companies during 2014. In Directors and Boards, we note that the gender profile of boards reveals a modest increase in female representation, as well … Continued