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Ben Maiden reports on the findings of this year’s IFLR international bond survey, where Allen & Overy has kept its nerve and its lead on stand alone bonds and Clifford Chance has leapt further ahead on securitization

The Andersen Legal network started to break up in April after plans to merge the auditor with big five rival KPMG collapsed.

The New Zealand government is in the process of a major reform of the country's securities law. The reform is a three-stage process, consisting of the enactment of a Takeovers Code, the introduction of a Securities Markets and Institutions Bill and a review of securities trading law. The first stage of the law reform package, the introduction of a Takeovers Code, was completed in July 2001 and the second, the introduction of the Securities Markets and Institutions Bill, is underway. (Buddle Findlay has commented on each of these developments in previous issues of IFLR.) The third of the trinity of reforms will be a comprehensive review of securities trading law. In a speech to a commercial law conference, the Minister of Commerce, Paul Swain, recently outlined the scope of the review and reiterated the direction of future securities law reform.

In a landmark ruling, the SEC has allowed American Life to communicate with investors purely via the internet. However, as Sebastian Sperber and Eric Kolodner of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in Hong Kong explain, it is far from clear where this will lead or what the effects of the Electronic Signatures Act will be

An offeror in a recent Canadian take over bid demonstrated ingenuity in squeezing out dissenting offerees in a new second step transaction designed to take the target private.

Many Japanese laws have been amended or created over the past few years to allow the use of electromagnetic data. For instance, Japanese laws providing for the authentication of electromagnetic data as well as electromagnetic signatures are now in place. The Securities and Exchange Law of Japan allows disclosure of certain corporate information in electric form. The electromagnetic information amendments to the Commercial Code of Japan, which will take effect on and from April 1 2002, will allow most corporate documents that must be prepared under the Commercial Code to be made and stored in electromagnetic form. Correspondence that is to be sent between a company and its shareholders may also be sent in electromagnetic form.

Allen & Overy and Linklaters advise on bond with highest conversion premium

Lehman Brothers have invented a new structure that allows a German state-owned Landesbank to raise Tier 1 capital in the international capital markets for the first time. The euro 500 million ($439 million) Landesbank Kiel transaction, which closed in February, would not have been possible previously due to withholding tax issues in Germany. Allen & Overy advised Landesbank Kiel. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised Lehman Brothers in Germany and Clifford Chance advised the bank in Luxembourg.

Allen & Overy is acting as international counsel on the first cross-border asset-backed deal to launch out of the Philippines for nearly five years.

The UK's equity market showed the first sign of returning health last month as the biggest initial public offering (IPO) launched in London since July 2001. Things are looking so good that a technology company is planning to list in June – the first technology IPO for over a year.