A stack of Mexican government policies in the energy space - supposedly implemented in response to the Covid-19 pandemic by Lopez Obrador's government - has forced project sponsors to take government agencies to court in order to bring renewable projects online. But can DFIs help provide further comfort to investors and banks looking to exit the sector?

The UK passed the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act last month in a bid to mitigate the economic fallout for struggling companies in the Covid-19 epoch. The impact of the reforms on the trade and commodities space is significant, especially given many international financings and commercial arrangements in those sectors are governed by English law.

From entry-level hiring and management promotion to ECA and DFI mandates, TXF’s Stages for Change series examines the role the trade and export finance industries must play in challenging racism, sexism, and social injustice.

The high-profile collapse of Singaporean-based oil trader Hin Leong and other certain suspect cases has highlighted malpractices within the sector and concern for future lendings. Jonathan Bell assesses what this all means for the commodity finance community in the city state.

While some European commodity-linked corporates are tapping into expensive, short-term debt to boost their liquidity amid the Covid-19 pandemic, many Russian traders and producers are confidently going ahead with general syndicated loans that were in the pipeline even before the crisis.