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The leading international rating agencies are facing an investigation by US lawmakers that could lead to more regulation over their activities.

The UK has moved to safeguard London's future as a financial hub by protecting securitizations from revamped insolvency rules in the UK Enterprise Bill, published at the end of March. The government has listened to the concerns of banks, lawyers and accountants that the Bill could threaten the future of securitizations and other capital markets transactions in the UK by removing the right for secured creditors to appoint administrative receivers. Losing this right would make it hard for secured creditors to enforce security over the assets of a bankrupt company ahead of unsecured creditors.

Shearman & Sterling opened its first office in Italy on March 18 in Rome and plans to open another in Milan. Partners Michael Bosco and Robert Ellison, together with Italian lead associate Domenico Fanuele, will lead the Rome operation. The office initially comprises about 10 lawyers with room for 25. And the firm is hunting for more. "We are actively looking for an Italian partner [from another firm]," said Ellison last month.

Linklaters & Alliance has won the top award at IFLR's European awards ceremony in London, scooping the title of European capital markets team of the year.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.