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To provide an overview of the Hong Kong regulatory regime for crypto-related investment products.

Describes the existing regulatory regime in Hong Kong for crypto-related investment products prior to November 2018 and, following circulars issued by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in November 2018, regulatory standards relating to virtual asset portfolio managers and fund distributors and a conceptual framework for potential regulation of virtual asset trading platform operators. Discusses the implications of the regulatory standards and conceptual framework.

The regulatory standards have aligned the requirements relating to crypto-related securities and futures contracts with those for crypto-related assets that do not fall within such definitions. The opt-in approach under the conceptual framework demonstrates that the SFC is actively trying to learn about the operations of platform operators and develop appropriate regulations accordingly.

Practical guidance from experienced lawyer with expertise in fund formation, fund investments and retail fund registration

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Strategic alliances are becoming a common practice between organizations in the global economy. They are seen as being able to improve performance and help keep organizations competitive. Bizzi (2017) argues that an integral aspect of forming a strategic alliance is the level of financial slack resource an organization has. The greater the financial headroom, the more likely an organization is to engage on a potentially risky alliance. In a global market place where resources and funding are becoming increasingly scarce, organizations that can have largely unallocated resources can be seen as ideal partners. And the key resource in today’s economy for alliances is finance.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This paper aims to detail the evolution of accounting controls conveyed as written rules at the Society of Jesus from the middle of the 17th century to the present day.

An analytically structured history approach is adopted. Four “Instructions” are analysed in detail and institutional theory is used as a lens to examine influences on accounting control rules over time.

The analysis reveals that accounting control rules maintained a core stability over time but were adapted and extended according to internal and external factors. Changes to the rules were thus mostly evolutionary. Influenced by mainly external factors, over the years the rules have become more detailed and accompanied by more practical guidance.

This study provides an analysis of the evolution of accounting control rules at the Society of Jesus, which thus far has not been presented. It provides insights on how the rules introduced more clarity and highlights the increasing recognition of secular management control and development within the Jesuit rules.

Scholarly knowledge of organizational founding in the nonprofit sector has grown not from macro-level analyses but rather from the aggregation of in-depth and focused studies of particular geographical regions or service fields. Employing logistic regression techniques, this paper examines the formation of nonprofits in one key but overlooked site of the voluntary sector: workplace charity. Testing competing theories, the paper analyzes the effect of demand-side, supply-side, and community-level characteristics on the presence of rival federated fundraisers in the largest 123 MSAs in 2000. The results indicate that these nonprofit organizations are formed in large cities with a sizeable and stable nonprofit sector, regardless of ease of access to charitable contributions and the level of available funding.

This study examines how narratives and legitimacy formation affect crowdfunding capital assembly from distributed, heterogeneous investors.

The study explores a dataset of 80,181 projects from Kickstarter, a rewards-based crowdfunding platform, between 2009 and 2013. We explore the link between project-related variables, legitimacy formation and outcomes.

Entrepreneurs design narratives and create project legitimacy by exploiting crowdfunding platform-specific features. First, lower funding targets and shorter campaign durations confer positive project legitimacy. Second, entrepreneurs exploit reward-levels as narrative tools that encourage funders to engage with the project. Third, visual pitches transmit a broader sociocultural narrative, leveraging emotional rather than financial reasoning. We also note certain gender effects.

Crowdfunding platforms allow entrepreneurs to pitch business ideas to a broad online audience. We show that project legitimacy, including both structural and narrative elements, is linked to crowdfunding outcomes. In particular, legitimacy is co-created through the generation of a persuasive narrative linking the entrepreneur and investor cohort.

Entrepreneurs use crowdfunding platforms to generate a coherent narrative around unfamiliar business models. Generic platform tools may be set and manipulated in online crowdfunding pitches to support project legitimacy. Ultimately, these are less important than establishing an affinity-based narrative that engages and exploits investor participation. Successful crowdfunding pitches co-author the project story with investors.

Crowdfunding has been traditionally understood as simply an online-mediated venture resource assembly tool. A narrative framework highlights the critical role of legitimacy formation in a disintermediated investment system.

To discuss issues that real estate fund sponsors may encounter due to investor liquidity constraints amidst the COVID-19 pandemic (such as investors seeking redemptions or transfers) and to provide guidance on potential ways that fund sponsors can prepare for, and respond to, such inquiries while at the same time addressing their fund’s liquidity needs (such as by utilizing subscription-secured credit facilities).

The article identifies the types of requests that investors may make to address their internal liquidity constraints, discusses contractual, legal, regulatory and business issues that fund sponsors should consider in responding to such requests and provides some alternatives for fund sponsors to consider allowing them to be responsive to investor liquidity concerns while also addressing fund capital needs.

The article finds that there are specific actions which fund sponsors should take in anticipating, and responding to, investor liquidity requests, such as reviewing partnership documents and credit facility documents and considering consequences in respect of ERISA, tax and compliance with applicable securities laws. The article also finds that specific affirmative actions by fund sponsors, such as increased borrowings under credit facilities, making distributions that are recallable and favoring transfers over withdrawals or redemptions may assist fund sponsors in preserving capital while addressing investor liquidity requests.

Fund sponsors should carefully review their fund documentation and determine their options and requirements as they pertain to potential liquidity requests. Fund sponsors should be careful to avoid foot-faults under their fund documents and credit facility agreements.

Practical guidance from experienced fund formation, securities law, tax, ERISA and finance lawyers.

Russia's size – both in terms of population and geography, spanning 11 time zones, 89 oblasts (states or regions) and autonomous republics and its privatization program, encompassing some 100,000 small-scale enterprises, 25,000 medium to large firms, and 300 or so of its largest firms, made its privatization program the largest sale/transfer of assets conducted among the transition economies, with the possible exception of China. Comparisons by many of the program's critics, and there are many, to Poland, Hungary, or the Czech republic are invidious, especially the latter two countries whose populations are similar to just that of greater Moscow.

To explain the UK government’s long-awaited reforms to limited partnership law.

This article discusses the key updates to limited partnership law in the UK that the reforms represent and draws some conclusions as to what may lay ahead.

The article concludes that the new regime is a welcome step and one that should help the United Kingdom to remain competitive as a jurisdiction for global fund formation in the face of competition from other jurisdictions.

This article contains key details on the new limited partnership regime in the UK and guidance from experienced lawyers with specialties in investment management and public and private funds.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the possibilities and limitations of venture capital formation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia where there has been a lack of success and benefits of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from this type of financing.

The paper provides a rationale for specific methodological choices and justifies its choice. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed. The methods section (research design) explains the entry criteria for the study population, specific imaging techniques and methods of data analysis.

Venture capital invest in companies in the beginning to achieve an above average return on investment. Unfortunately, there are no officially registered venture capital funds in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For the venture capital funds to operate, it is necessary to adopt regulations governing this area, to create a favorable tax system and introduce a cash basis for VAT calculation for SMEs. The majority of respondents in the research believe that in the establishment of venture capital funds would provide one of the greatest supports by the governments of these countries, analyzing the economic situation in these countries, it is apparent that there is an under-developed legal and tax system, which does not support SMEs. In order to attract foreign and domestic investors, and form venture capital funds, it is necessary to create a favorable business environment.

The paper contains novel information and insight into VC funds in two transition economies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia.

The paper aims to investigate the emergence of science policy in the states of the USA, drawing attention to the fact that every state has a science and technology agency and multiple programs that attempt to raise the level of science and technology in the state and attract resources from elsewhere.

The paper builds upon the authors' previous study of high‐tech growth and renewal in Boston and Silicon Valley through analysis of documents and interviews with key actors in universities, S&T policy units of the Governor's association to detail the bottom‐up initiatives exemplifying the US innovation policy model.

The path dependent elements in US science and technology policy are an enhanced role for universities, an ambivalent role for national government and industry and a growing role for state and local government. Federal research funds, largely confined to support of agricultural research before the Second World War, became available for a variety of civilian and military purposes, on an ongoing basis, after the war. An assisted linear model of coordinated innovation mechanisms has been constructed on this base to translate inventions into economic activity through university‐industry‐government interactions.

The paper shows that S&T policy at the state level fills gaps in university‐industry relations, leverages federal R&D spending and enhances local comparative and competitive advantage.