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Wall Street firm Cravath, Swain & Moore had a bumper start to the Spring season in March, successful negotiating two deals totalling $15.5 billion. Also involved in the transactions were Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Californian firm Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe. Cravath, Swaine & Moore acted for healthcare product maker Johnson & Johnson in April on its agreed a $10.5 billion merger with research-based pharmaceuticals company ALZA. Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe acted for ALZA in a transaction which saw ALZA shareholders receive a fixed exchange ratio of 0.49 shares of Johnson & Johnson common stock for each share of ALZA in a tax-free transaction.

Lucent Technologies, advised by Cravath, Swaine &Moore, finally pulled off a $3.6 billion initial public offering (IPO) of its optoelectronics division, Agere Systems, in late March, bringing a welcome boost to equity work for some lawyers in the US.

Singapore's DBS hired Freshfields and Allen & Gledhill to advise on its S$10 billion ($5.5billion) acquisition of Hong Kong's Dao Heng, which was advised by Slaughter and May. DBS's $782 million hybrid tier one financing in March prompted speculation that an acquisition was likely. Negotiations are rumoured to have begun in October 2000. DBS is controlled by the Singapore government, while Dao Heng was owned by the Guoco Group, which is controlled by the Kwek family, one of Malaysia's shrewdest business families.

David Webb has long been a crusader against Hong Kong’s crony capitalism, but now he has upped the ante and is challenging the government to debate the issue of corporate governance openly. Nick Ferguson reports

Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells has grabbed a fourth bankruptcy lawyer from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius' New York office. Scott Talmadge joined this April, reuniting with former colleagues Margot Schonholtz, Mark Liscio and Jill Kurtzman, who were recruited by Clifford Chance a year ago to develop the financial restructuring practice group.

There may be no such thing as a 100% risk-free project financing, particularly in emerging markets, but excess risk is still a deterrent to investors. In the first of a two-part series, Ellen Hayes and Amy Cummings of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Washington, DC, look at what steps being taken to mitigate the problems of corruption, legislation reform and arbitration procedures

The Athens Stock Exchange launched a new market for high-tech, high-growth companies in April, looking to capitalize on the same opportunities as exchanges like the Neuer Markt. Yannis Avgerinos, of the British Institute of International & Comparative Law, looks at the rules for companies listing on the new exchange

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is pioneering financial regulation in the UK by becoming its sole governing power, and is closely linked to the debate over European regulation. With the Authority fully assuming its powers in November this year, Sara Ver-Bruggen talks to Andrew Whittaker about the challenges it faces

Under Turkish competition law, the relevant legislation governing mergers and acquisitions is Law No. 4054 and the Communiqué on the Mergers and Acquisitions Requiring the Permission of the Competition Board (Communiqué). Under the Communiqué, a merger or an acquisition will be subject to the permission of the Turkish Competition Board if it exceeds the market share and turnover thresholds determined by the provisions of the Communiqué.

The long-awaited amendments to the provisions of Canada's provincial securities legislation governing takeover and issuer bids (sometimes referred to as the Zimmerman amendments) took effect on March 31 2001. The amendments apply to each Canadian province that has securities legislation governing takeover and issuer bids, other than Québec, where the securities regulators are awaiting legislative approvals required to implement the amendments.