Legal developments and events

Legal transition developments

Recent legal developments in transition countries  (0.1Mb), February - December 2007. Compiled by the EBRD's Office of the General Counsel.

 

Legal Panel - Annual Meeting

On Monday 19th May 2008 at the Banks Annual Meeting in Kiev the EBRD hosted a legal panel entitled "Strengthening Mortgage Markets  ". The panel, consisting of lawyers and bankers discussed the fact that Mortgage markets in the region are growing but remain in many respects fragile. The panel explored the questions of how well prepared the region is and how reform can best be tackled.

Secured Transactions and Insolvency: Reforms at a Crossroads

On 5-6th May 2008 the EBRD jointly hosted an international conference with the World Bank and UNCITRAL in Washington. The conference  (0.1Mb), designed to address the intersection between secured transaction and insolvency in the context of legal reform was well attended by representatives Russian Federation, Serbia, India, Canada and the USA as well as practitioners from the IFC, Asian Development Bank, the OECD and INSOL. Issues discussed included:

• Whether increased creditors’ rights laws increase or decrease access to credit;
• The extent to which public proceedings should intrude on private contract rights;
• Whether empirical research indicates reform is succeeding;
• Reports from the field on the status of reform;
• Insolvency of enterprise groups; and
• Creditor control vs. debtor-in-possession control in bankruptcy proceedings.

In addition to the conference some of the representatives participated in a roundtable discussion. The roundtable, held after the general conference and open by invitation only, was designed to facilitate open discussion of insolvency and secured transactions work being performed amongst the various organisations and to identify areas for future collaboration. From the discussion, it is clear that reforms made in one area necessarily affect the other and it is vital for all stakeholders to consider both secured transactions and insolvency together.

Conference - Corporate Governance of Banks in Euraisa

On 30 April 2008, over 40 representatives from the banking sector in Eurasia and corporate governance experts from the EBRD, OECD, IFC and World Bank attended a conference at the EBRD’s HQ in London to discuss the findings of a policy brief on the corporate governance of banks in Eurasia (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan). The Policy Brief identifies key corporate governance challenges affecting banks in that region and makes recommendations to address them. Its purpose is to support policy makers, banking supervisors, capital market regulators, banks and banking associations in their work of strengthening corporate governance practices.

EuroLawyer 2008: CIS-EU Legal Reform

On 4-5th April the EBRD participated in a conference  (0.9Mb) to discuss latest core developments in corporate legal practice. The event, attended by CIS and EU government officials, senior executives from EU and CIS companies, in house lawyers in the region and judges.The EBRD made a presentation on 'Equity investments in the CIS: good corporate governance matters', this presentation was designed to introduce the EBRDs participation in the region and discuss the relevance of corporate governance standards promoted by the EBRD.

Seminar - Introduction to IPOs in Serbia

On 29th February the EBRD organised a seminar  (0.1Mb) to highlight and discuss the issues relating to Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in Serbia. Speakers at the event, attended by a large audience included Mr. Slobodan Ilic, the Sate Secretary from the Serbian Ministry of Finance and Mr. Milko Stimac, President of the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Republic of Serbia.

Global Corporate Governance Forum

On 20th February the EBRD participated in a seminar  (6.7Mb) at the European Parliament to discuss European Corporate Governance Standards. The aim of the seminar was to raise awareness of corporate governance standards and provide candidate and potential candidate countries with better access to relevent EU information. This was a high level meeting in collaboration with the IFC and the European Commission.

Financial and Corporate Law Issues for Lawyers in Transition Economies

This series of seminars  (0.3Mb), over a three day period at the London School of Economics and Political Science and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development offers the opportunity to examine in depth, with leading academics and experienced practitioners, the key issues of particular sensitivity in transition economies in areas such as concession-based project finance and public private partnerships, secured lending and company law. The seminars, which will be designed to stimulate open discussion (with delegate numbers being limited to approximately 35) will be of interest to all lawyers active in financial and corporate transactions in transition economies.

G8 Rule of Law Conference

On 30 November 2007, the EBRD took part in a one-day conference in Berlin on the Promotion of the Rule of Law. The idea for that conference originated at the 30 May 2007 meeting of G8 foreign ministers in Potsdam, where a Declaration on the Rule of Law was adopted. The German presidency was then asked to host a conference of experts with a view to taking stock of current initiatives and identifying existing challenges in the promotion of the Rule of Law as a key condition for economic and democratic development. Besides legal experts from each of the G8 countries (judges, private practitioners, notaries, representatives of ministries), the participants included representatives of international and bilateral agencies working on legal technical assistance throughout the world. The African Development Bank, the Asian Development and USAID had all sent representatives. GtZ, who acted as conference co-organiser, was also largely represented.

The event was organised as a roundtable where participants were asked to provide their feedback in the course of open discussions on specific themes. The participants were split into 4 working groups and the EBRD took part in the first working group (Rule of Law and economy), where the main findings of the EBRD Legal Transition Programme was shared with the audience. The EBRD stressed the need to continue developing better assessment tools to understand the status of legal reforms in developing and transition countries. The EBRD also highlighted the need to work on the implementation of commercial and financial legislation in transition countries.

In concluding the working groups reported to the plenum, stressing in particular the need for more training activities, more assessment work, and above all, the urgent need to coordinate legal technical assistance efforts among aid providers. The conclusions will be refined by the co-chairs after the event and submitted to the G8 foreign ministers for their consideration.

Conference on Public Private Partnerships in Central and Eastern Europe

The EBRD was invited to attend and make a presentation at the third annual “Public Private Partnership in Central and Eastern Europe” conference, which took place on 15th and 16th October 2007 in Prague. The event brought together over 200 delegates from most European emerging markets, Western Europe, IFIs and similar multinational organisations, including the WB, IFC, UN ECE, EIB, EU as well as bilateral agencies, - one of the largest event of its kind on PPP in the CEE and SEE region.

The participants had a good opportunity to share their experience and looked at challenges that public and private sector face both in countries with established PPP practices and those that have only just started implementing PPPs. Particularly interesting parts of this event were the two sessions designed to give the floor to public sector panellists from CEE: one on central government issues and the other on municipal ones.

The conference was an excellent opportunity to showcase EBRD’s efforts to date, including the concession law assessment and legal indicator survey, and to share with the audience our plans for the future. Please click here to listen to an interview with Alexei Zverev, Senior Counsel, EBRD.

15th Annual Conference of Serbian Commercial Court Judges

From 16 - 18 September 2007, the EBRD was represented at the Conference, attended by representatives of the Serbian Ministry of Justice, Judges of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Serbia, the High Commercial Court (the Conference organizer), Commercial Courts, as well as representatives of other government institutions dealing with bankruptcy. There was participation in multiple training sessions aimed at instructing judges in insolvency-related matters and a presentation of the EBRD's views on insolvency law reform along with practice advice and direction.

UNCITRAL Conference, Modern Law for Global Commerce

The EBRD attended a conference  (0.1Mb) to mark the 40th anniversary of UNCITRAL held in Vienna on the 9th -12th July. The event was attended by hundreds of participants from all over the world, including the UN agencies concerned with commercial law reform (e.g., UNCTAD) who were represented by their respective heads, the Hague Conference on Private International Law, UNIDROIT, OECD, WTO, governmental officials, as well as representatives from all the main development banks, many bilateral aid providers, academics, and others.

Participants were invited to share their views on a series of selected issues linked to the UNCITRAL mandate and to contribute to the formulation of new objectives for its future activities. Representatives of the EBRD presented papers on Concessions  (0.1Mb) and Legal Technical Assistance  (0.1Mb).

Conference on the New Interconnection Rules for Kyrgyzstan to Improve Telecommunications Services and Investment

The EBRD in association with the National Communications Agency (Kyrgyzstan’s telecommunications sector regulator) sponsored a conference in Bishkek on Thursday, June 21, 2007. The conference discussed forthcoming improvements to the regulatory framework governing how the country’s telecommunications operators interconnect with each other.

Stakeholders with an interest in improved and lower cost telecommunications services met to discuss proposed new Interconnection Rules, which are intended to replace existing regulations. These stakeholders included representatives from the National Communications Agency, the Ministry of Transport and Communications and other Government ministries, telecommunications network operators, user groups, NGOs and donors active in telecommunications related work. The new Interconnection Rules, currently in draft form were prepared with the assistance of consultants and funded by EBRD from its multi-donor Early Transition Country (ETC) fund. Input provided by conference attendees will be used to finalize the new Interconnection Rules. The National Communications Agency intends to adopt the finalized rules in July 2007 and bring them into force in September 2007.