Gregory P Joseph has had an outstanding career in commercial law – litigating highly complex disputes with considerable stakes. In practice since 1975, he has seen significant changes in the way the US judiciary handles commercial cases, and won considerable victories along the way. He discusses the emerging trends in commercial litigation and a recent $268m judgement he secured for City Bank against Morgan Stanley.

Zenith Bank has one of the lowest non-performing loan ratios in Nigeria, a capital adequacy ratio of 25 percent (15 percentage points higher than the level prescribed by the Nigerian Central Bank) and the sixth-largest market capitalisation in Africa. Godwin Emefiele describes Zenith’s remarkable growth story, from just a single branch to an international network of stable subsidiaries.

Brazil’s economy is growing at an astounding rate, as is the wealth of its people, across all income segments. With this growth comes high demand for homes: the country needs 1.5 million new units a year, before factoring in its 5.8 million unit deficit. With 50 years of history in the country and three well-respected brands, Gafisa is well placed to capitalise on these needs. Duilio Calciolati outlines Brazil’s real estate environment.

Business telephony has moved swiftly past the BlackBerry archetype and is now embracing the bring-your-own-device trend – which presents new challenges of control and security for businesses. Globo’s CEO discusses his company’s GO!Enterprise Server solution for secure enterprise telephony, its origins in providing a smartphone experience on feature phones, and the possibility of moving from London’s AIM to New York’s Nasdaq.

According to the European banking stress tests, Banca March has the highest solvency rating in Europe, at 22 percent. Hugo Aramburu discusses how the European Banking Authority’s analysis has been a powerful marketing tool for the bank, the hope of the Spanish financial industries as the country comes out of the recession, and the three pillars of support Banca March offers to family businesses and business managers.

Adel Al-Majed’s 13 years of experience at National Bank of Kuwait were invaluable when the group gained control of Boubyan Bank, setting a clear new strategy and identifying the best people to fulfill its new mission. The new MD talks about the importance of the thriving Islamic segment, the balance sheet surgery Boubyan needed in 2009, and his ambitious goal to become the third-largest bank in Kuwait in five years.

Currency volatility, the single dominant factor driving the forex market, has been one of the key features of 2011, as every day the world speculates on the future of Europe as a whole and its member countries individually. Michael Konnaris discusses the growth of the market, and how easy-forex is capitalising on increased retail interest – especially in Asia.

While a lot of biotech solutions are developed from the ground up – by researchers investigating possibilities and potential – Farsight works the other way around – by identifying a market need and developing the science to provide a solution. Dr Refsum talks about his ideal project, the pressure on traditional research streams, and the global potential for scientific development.

Greece is rarely out of the news right now, with new debt negotiations and austerity measures announced every week – but the wheels of financial industry must keep turning. Dimosthenis Arhodidis discusses the three big challenges the Greek banking system faces because of the country’s sovereign debt crisis, and how Eurobank helped its private banking clients diversify their assets before the storm truly hit.

Saxo Bank is a brokerage heavyweight, providing multi-asset trading services to countless end-users, via more than 100 clients of its white label business. This year Saxo Bank will be 20 years old, and today white labeling for online retail brokers represents 40 percent of its business – but looking back, says Kim Fournais, the bank didn’t realise just how important the internet would become in its services.