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Cashpooling is the centralization of group treasury management used to maximize the financial results of the cash management policy of a group. The past couple of years have seen an ever increasing demand for the implementation of European cross-border cashpooling systems, involving one or more Portuguese subsidiaries. As a rule the pool leader is located in a European country other than Portugal.

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."

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.

Thomas Abbondante Allen & Overy's debt practice made waves again last month when the firm helped secure the largest ever high-yield bond issue by a European company outside the telecommunications sector. US partners Thomas Abbondante and Adam Kupitz led the firm's high-yield team advising Goldman Sachs International, Royal Bank of Scotland and Hypovereinsbank on the euro 550 million ($471 million) 10.4% bond issued by Messer Griesheim Holding, the holding company of the German industrial gases group Messer Griesheim.

Jonathan Inman, head of project finance at Linklaters in Tokyo, is leaving the firm's Japanese office in June. He will resume his work in the London office at the end of August, advising energy clients such as Enron, following the end of his secondment.

UK firm Lovells has boosted its corporate and finance practices in London, Frankfurt and Paris by poaching five partners from the European offices of rival US and UK firms.

BBLP Beiten Burkhardt Mittl & Wegener was hit in early May by the defection of its entire Frankfurt mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team and all but one of its five partners in the city to Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Led by the managing partner of the firm's Frankfurt office, Gerhard Schmidt, partners Heiner Drüke, Stephan Grauke and Uwe Hartmann are to move to the local office of the US firm leaving just one partner, the public notary Thilo Krause-Palfner, to hold the fort for BBLP in the city.

Mexico's congress amended a securities bill increasing in May, minority rights for shareholders and increasing disclosure levels, which it hopes will spur the growth of the country's capital markets.

UK lawyers have reacted angrily to the German government's attempt to frustrate the agreement of a European takeover code. The 12-year long negotiations to establish a pan-European code were thrown into disarray at the end of May when German government officials bowed to domestic pressure and withdrew their support for the draft European directive. European member states now have until the end of this month, when the conciliation period over the takeover code ends, to agree a compromise or the draft directive will collapse and with it any hope of agreeing a European code.