I'm Brian curtiss in Los Angeles Let's check this hour to stop business stories and the markets China is planning to ban foreign IPOs that use variable interest entities which is known as the VIE structure It allows investors to hold a controlling interest in the company without the voting privileges Bloomberg Steven engel tells us the Chinese companies have been using VIE to not break laws at home The laws were in place to prevent foreign investment in sensitive industries like the Internet Now the VIE structure was a way the sidestep that If you cut that off which we're hearing from sources that significantly alters the landscape of how Chinese companies will be able to raise capital overseas cuts off a lucrative line of business for Wall Street of course but then again the sources are also telling us that it would not necessarily apply to Hong Kong listings In the meantime China's securities regulators said that reports about banning overseas listings of companies is not true but there were no further details given and they did not respond to a note asking questions from Bloomberg The U.S. Ireland Norway and South Korea have reported their first cases of omicron The chief scientist of the World Health Organization said that vaccines will likely protect against severe cases of the new variant Asian equities are lower earlier U.S. stock struggled through a two day sell off the worst since October of last year the latest developments on the omicron strain weighed on markets the U.S. confirming its first case in California Let's check the Asian markets in detail here The hanxing index is actually trading higher now up four tenths of a percent but the hang sang tech index is down 1.2% The nikkei is off two thirds of 1% but stocks are higher in Seoul with the cost be up 1.1% and the tax in Taiwan gaining about four tenths of 1% Global news 24 hours a day live and at Bloomberg quick take in Los Angeles I'm Brian Curtis This is Bloomberg.