Book excerpt: The popular student guide that's become a secret resource for experienced banking and capital market lawyers In the post "credit crunch" era radical and complex changes have fundamentally reshaped the legal and commercial environment of banks and capital markets. Together with two of the longest Acts of Parliament ever passed, lawyers and students alike can be swamped by the level of knowledge now required of them. Banking and Capital Markets Companion, Fifth Edition covers this entire area of law, and offers a fast way to get to grips with these latest developments for banking executives, LPC students, young lawyers and more experienced professionals. This new edition provides the perfect primer to the changes which have already taken place since 2007 and also to further reforms which are now being implemented in the United Kingdom and further afield. This new edition contains all the latest developments in this area of law including Companies Act 2006 and the Corporation Tax Act 2009, as well as Basel III, IFRS 9, and the provisions relating to the Bank Levy in the draft Finance Bill 2011. Furthermore, all of this is applied in the context of industry standard documentation such as that issued by the LMA and ISDA. Like its sister publication the Legal Practice Companion, Banking and Capital Markets Companion is presented in an easy to read and recall format, utilising graphics, flowcharts, bullets and summaries - which can be studied at a range of depths to suit the readers use.