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In response to recent international agreements, proposed changes to Australia's anti-money-laundering laws will mean increased penalties for non-compliance and a broader range of obligations concerning reporting, investigations, property-tracking and disclosure.

Securitization specialists are carefully considering an announcement by Eurostat that it intends to change the way it looks at sovereign debt securitizations when drawing up country balance sheets.

As a reaction to China's accession to the World Trade Organization, new regulations have been introduced broadly classifying the projects in which foreign sponsors may or may not invest. The projects are listed in four categories: encouraged, permitted, restricted and prohibited. The new legislation appears in the Provisional Regulations for Guiding the Direction of Foreign Investment, and the Catalogue for Guiding Foreign Investment in Industries, effective from April 1 2002. These replace similar regulations dating from 1995 and 1997 respectively.

New provisions appear in a revised Code of Banking Practice dealing with debt collection agencies in Hong Kong. These are significant in that they prohibit the use of certain improper or harassment tactics and require banks and financial institutions authorized under the Banking Ordinance (AIs) to stop collecting debts once the debtor is adjudged bankrupt. They also impose systems and procedures for the selection of debt collectors and the monitoring of their performance. AIs are required to comply with the revised Code on or before June 1 2002.

Davis Polk and Hengeler advise banks on Rentenbank offering Davis Polk & Wardwell and Hengeler Mueller have advised Merrill Lynch, Pierce Fenner & Smith, BNP Paribas Securities and UBS as lead managers of a $1.25 billion offering of 4.875% notes by Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank due 2007.

Two years ago the Nordic region was riding high on the technology wave but the capital markets have crashed and the region’s tech-heavy stock exchanges have suffered more than most. By Stephen Hoare

White & Case and Allen & Overy have advised on the first initial public offering (IPO) by a German company this year. Wind power company REpower Systems completed its €94.3 million ($83.2 million) listing on the Neuer Markt at the end of last month. The offering included a Rule 144A private placement in the US and a regulation S private placement outside the country.

Linklaters and Herbert Smith are advising on the UK's largest, most complex restructuring in the utility sector. The restructuring of Anglian Water Group (AWG) will ringfence £1.9 billion ($2.75 billion) of existing debt and raise a further £1.6 billion in new debt.

Derivatives specialists have been trying hard to defend their business in the wake of the collapse of Enron. At its annual general meeting the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) went as far as issuing a detailed rebuttal of claims that the market needs tighter regulation. "The market in the end exercised the ultimate sanction over [Enron]" its release asserts. But, try as they might, derivatives specialists cannot shake off all of the blame for the scandal. Now lawyers, too, have begun to suggest the markets may not be whiter than white. Though Enron's chief crime was to lie about how much it was really making, the company's collapse hides a quirk of the derivatives market that could bring down another organization if it goes unnoticed.

Uría y Menéndez and former Andersen ally J&A Garrigues are working on what may be one of the largest initial public offerings in Spain this year. Gas Natural's €1.6 billion ($1.4 billion) sale of Enagas, its gas distribution arm, is one of the first steps in a drive to liberalize the country's energy markets and is expected to breathe new life into Spain's capital markets.