The Dubai International Financial Centre Authority (DIFCA) announced on Sunday 14 December 2014, that the Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has signed into DIFC law a new statute that provides for the effectiveness under DIFC law of the netting of obligations under contracts such as derivatives master agreements.

Linklaters has advised the existing and incoming senior lenders on the structuring and refinancing of €1.4bn of debt facilities for Budapest Airport. The deal involved refinancing the existing 30 banks with both a significantly revised senior facility and entirely new junior debt tranche.

Slaughter and May advised Delta Lloyd Levensverzekering N.V. (DLL), the Dutch life insurance arm of the Delta Lloyd Group, on a transaction with Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) to mitigate longevity risk related to its Dutch life insurance portfolio. It is the first time that DLL has transferred any part of its longevity exposure to the reinsurance market.

Hogan Lovells has advised Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) on an index-based longevity swap transaction it has entered into with Delta Lloyd covering €12 billion of Delta Lloyd's longevity reserves. The transaction completed on 22 August 2014.

This marks the first time that Delta Lloyd Levensverzekering N.V., the life insurance arm of the Dutch insurance, pensions and investments firm Delta Lloyd, has used the reinsurance market to transfer longevity risk.

Ashurst advised 3W Power S.A., the Luxembourg-based holding company of AEG Power Solutions Group, a global provider of UPS systems and power electronic solutions for industrial, commercial, renewable and distributable energy markets, on its capital increase with subscription rights from authorised capital and a debt-to-equity swap.

CMS in London has successfully acted for SCOR SE in the £5 billion reinsurance of Aviva Staff Pension Scheme, a pension fund of Aviva Life & Pensions UK Ltd, in what is the largest pension longevity swap to date.

The milestone deal is the first disintermediated transaction of its kind that allows an efficient risk transfer to the reinsurance market, opening the door for other schemes to follow suit.  The £5 billion deal is 50% larger than the previous largest longevity swap and takes the total value of such deals to more than £30 billion.

Clifford Chance has advised Deutsche Bank on two longevity swaps, one with the Trustees of the AstraZenaca Pension Fund, in respect of approximately £2.5bn of the fund liabilities, and one with the Trustees of five pension schemes sponsored by Carillion plc, in respect of approximately £1bn of the fund liabilities.

Under each of the arrangements, Deutsche Bank will hedge the longevity exposures of the scheme, passing on the risk to a syndicate of reinsurers, including new entrants into the market.

Linklaters has advised the Trustee of the AstraZeneca Pension Fund on its £2.5 billion Longevity Swap with Deutsche Bank AG, London branch.

AstraZeneca and the Trustee of the AstraZeneca Pension Fund have agreed a Longevity Swap that will give additional security to all members of the company’s pension scheme. The Longevity Swap with Deutsche Bank manages the longevity risk on approximately £2.5bn of the pension scheme’s liabilities.  Around 10,000 pensioners are covered by this agreement.

Slaughter and May advised Aegon, one of the world’s largest insurance and pension companies, on its second innovative longevity transaction to reduce its risk from future improvements in longevity in the Netherlands.

The transaction, which was announced on 04 December 2013, has a maturity of 20 years with a commutation covering exposures that run longer than 20 years. It covers underlying longevity reserves in the Netherlands of EUR 1.4 billion.

Allen & Overy has advised Nationwide Building Society on the creation and inaugural issuance of GBP500 million Core Capital Deferred Shares (CCDS), a mutual-friendly capital raising instrument designed to meet the requirements of UK and European authorities under the new regulatory capital regime.

The issuance was significantly oversubscribed. The managers were Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, JP Morgan Cazenove and UBS. Nationwide was advised by Rothschild.