The International Association of Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Professionals recently held its second Africa Roundtable in Abuja, Nigeria. The diverse participation in the roundtable of decision makers, regulators, the judiciary and major players in the African capital markets indicates the importance of reforms in the national and African insolvency regimes. http://www.internationallawoffice.com/?i=1084378&l=7EUP0S4

Inflation fears—fueled by spiraling food, oil and raw material prices—are mounting around the globe, prompting the head of the European Central Bank to signal that it could raise interest rates in the future even though some countries have been weakened by the Continent's debt crisis. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal ahead of this week's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jean-Claude Trichet warned that inflation pressures in the euro zone must be watched closely, and urged central bankers everywhere to ensure that higher energy and food pri

Countries such as Greece are experiencing what African countries experienced in most of the 1980s and ’90s — IMF-led structural adjustment programmes, which forced governments to cut spending by eliminating subsidies to various sectors and implementing strict fiscal retrenchment, the Daily Nation reported in a commentary. This “shock therapy” was expected to reduce government deficits and make countries economically stable. But as many African governments can attest, this therapy had mixed results at best, and disastrous consequences at worst.