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Chilean Securities Act

The French securitization market has experienced a significant boom over the last 18 months, as corporates and French financial institutions alike learn to reap the benefits of an increasingly flexible and reliable legal framework introduced by the law of December 23 1988. This established a new type of entity, the fonds commun de créances (FCC) aimed at providing market participants with a vehicle for securitization structures. In so doing, France was the first civil law country to deal successfully with the constraints imposed by the civil law regime in terms of the transfer of assets and create an entity capable of matching the flexibility available in Anglo Saxon jurisdictions.

Strategic Defence Take-over Insurance (SDTI) was recently launched by Lloyd's in the US, offering companies coverage in the event of hostile bids and proxy contests. Companies purchase an option which guarantees the right to secure an insurance policy, in the event that a hostile bid is received by a target company. Insured companies are reimbursed for direct costs associated with a hostile bid. The costs include expenditures on investment bankers, public relations/ advertising firms, legal advisers, proxy solicitation costs, and printing and mailing costs.

Pillsbury Winthrop of the US and Mexico's Creel, Garcia-Cuellar y Muggenburg have advised UK mobile phone company Vodafone on its first bid to establish a market in Latin America. Last month the company bought a 34.5% stake in Grupo Iusacell from the Peralta family for $973.4 million. Iusacell is Mexico's second largest mobile operator after Telefonica of Spain. The deal is being seen as a much needed boost for Iusacell, which last October lost out to Telefonica in negotiations to acquire five mobile phone companies operating in the north of the country.

Lovells has represented the world's oldest mutual life assurer, the UK's Equitable Life, in a sell-off that has dominated the British business press.

Despite a slowing economy, the turf war in New York between established firms and new entrants continues to grow ever more aggressive, with mid-size firms coming under the greatest pressure.

Stephen Mostyn-Williams Stephen Mostyn-Williams has left his post as head of European acquisition finance at Shearman & Sterling to become director of business development at Landwell. Though Mostyn-Williams is credited with the success of Shearmans' acquisition finance practice in Europe, he says that he is not moving over to PricewaterhouseCoopers' correspondent law firm as a rainmaker. "This is absolutely not, 'Oh, Stephen's leaving Shearmans and he's going to start an acquisition finance practice at Landwell'," says Mostyn-Williams.

BBLP Moquet Borde 30, Avenue de Messine

2000 was a bumper year for lawyers in Paris working at the high-end of capital markets and M&A – and not just those at the international firms. Now, as Thomas Williams reports from Paris, it is up to the regulators to make sure restrictive regulations do not stifle the boom

Clifford Chance will soon offer one-stop legal advice in Tokyo thanks to a joint venture with a local Japanese firm. Just over one year after mergers with US firm Roger & Wells and German firm Pünder, Volhard, Weber & Axster, Clifford Chance is tying up with Japan's Tanaka & Akita. However, this latest deal is hardly likely to overshadow the firm's landmark mergers in the US and Germany. When Tanaka & Akita goes ahead with the joint venture on May 1 it will add 10 lawyers to the 28 Clifford Chance already has in its existing Tokyo office. The joint venture will operate from the existing offices of Clifford Chance and will be known as Clifford Chance and Tanaka & Akita (T&A). Never let it be said that lawyers are afraid of change.