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The new provisions of the Act on Insurance Companies (ICA) and the Act on Foreign Insurance Companies (FICA) have expanded the business opportunities of Finnish insurance companies and insurance companies located outside the EEA. New rules on the marketing of insurance products and services were introduced concurrently. The objective of the amendments is to expand the possibilities of insurance companies to operate in the financial markets and to harmonize the marketing rules and requirements applicable to credit institutions and insurance companies. The amendments of the ICA and FICA became effective on May 15 2001.

A faltering economy and troubled stock exchanges have forced the German government and industry to seek legal reform to reawaken the markets. Thomas Williams reports from Frankfurt where lawyers are hoping to profit from a change in attitude among rule-makers and corporate clients

Australian firm Clayton Utz has advised on the world's largest trade in carbon credits. The deal, completed in Sydney in early June, was struck between Japan's Cosmo Oil and Australian Plantation Timber, and involves the trade of one million CO2 tonnes over an 11-year term. The trading of carbon credits is not a well-established field. The Kyoto Protocol would have provided a framework for such trades but so far no developed nations have ratified the agreement and the withdrawal of US support is likely to bring about its complete collapse.

On May 11 2001, the board of directors Colombian Central Bank (Banco de la República) issued External Resolution No. 2 of 2001 reforming articles 48, 49, 50 and 51 of External Resolution No. 8 of 2000, issued by the same entity, which contains the Foreign Exchange Regime. The articles that were reformed comprise the special foreign exchange regime applicable to the oil, gas & mining sectors in Colombia. The special regime allows certain entities which participate in the oil, gas and mining sector in Colombia not to repatriate to the Colombian foreign exchange market the revenues they receive from sales made by them in foreign currencies.

Davis, Polk & Wardwell and Clifford Chance have advised on the partial privatization and initial public offering of the Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil. The $2.9 billion deal involved the listing of Statoil in the US and Norway. Jeff Berman, one of the corporate partners at Davis Polk who worked on the deal, said that transaction was an important part of the restructuring taking place in the Norwegian oil industry. "We did this deal under difficult market conditions and to a tight timetable," he said. "But it was also at time when oil and gas prices are very high."

Allen & Overy's recent poach of a securitization specialist from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe is already paying dividends. Ken Aboud, the jewel in the crown of Orrick's highly regarded Asian securitization team, has just completed Singapore's first securitization to be rated by one of the three leading credit rating agencies. Freshfields advised Fitch IBCA on the S$200 million ($110 million) issue while Wong Partnership, the Singapore firm that formed a failed joint venture with Clifford Chance, advised CapitaLand Residential.

Singapore banks DBS and OCBC have both launched domestic takeover battles that will reshape the city state's banking industry. The Singapore government is committed to creating a regional financial powerhouse and its banks have taken up the fight. In May DBS took over Hong Kong's Dao Heng for S$9.9 billion ($5.4 billion) and it is now moving in on local rival OUB, at a cost of S$9.4 billion. Allen & Gledhill has advised DBS on both transactions and is also advising OCBC on the takeover of Keppel Capital, Singapore's smallest bank. The deal comes hand-in-hand with an offer of S$3 billion of new upper tier-two subordinated notes denominated in Singapore dollars, US dollars, British pounds and euros. Clifford Chance and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett are providing international advice.

John Walker, Milbank Tweed US firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy has helped close the largest static collateralized debt obligation (CDO) in Europe, advising three Portuguese Banks on the second Tagus Global Bond Securitization. At euro1.1 billion ($942 million) the transaction is the largest static CDO in Europe and only the second collateralized bond obligation to include Portuguese debt. Milbank Tweed partner John Walker advised lead managers and arrangers Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank on the transaction that involved an issue of three tranches of bonds at different values and maturity dates on behalf of a syndicate of Portuguese banks. Pedro Cassiano and Paulo Gomez from the Portuguese firm Veira de Almeida & Associados advised the syndicate of banks, including Banco Comercial Português, Espírito Santo Activos Fianceiros and AF Investimentos Gestão de Patrimónios, on Portuguese law.

Christian Lambie, Allen & Overy Building on the success of its 1999 securitization of the UK's Broadgate shopping centre, Allen & Overy has pulled off a similar deal for UBS Warburg. The UK firm has advised the bank as structurer and lead manager on a £575 million ($812 million) for UK property company British Land in the first of two deals it closed in June in the commercial mortgage-backed securitzation field. The transaction involved the issue of secured and unsecured debt by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) of the British Land Group, backed by rental payments from 35 supermarkets leased by to UK grocer J Sainsburys. The debt was then bought and reissued by an orphan company, Werretown Supermarkets Securitizations, which issued two senior tranches of bonds.

Some observers have claimed recently that the much-heralded boom in European commercial mortgage-backed securitization will come to nothing. However, as Liz Jones of Norton Rose, London, argues, large innovative deals such as May’s ProLogis and the enthusiasm of investors give grounds for optimism