Search results for

Citigroup’s latest buy signals closer integration between the US and Mexico. With a new ruling party and a raft of pro-business reform measures in the pipeline, Mexico is attracting attention from growth-minded international corporations. Yet the legal market remains dominated by domestic firms. For now. Tom Nicholson reports

Many shareholders in US companies face obstacles in reaping the benefits of transactions such as mergers which increase the value of their stock. Mark Bergman, head of the securities group at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, examines the implications of the often restrictive US securities laws

Later this year the EU is expected to pass legislation that will pave the way for the European Company, with far reaching implications for cross-border business in Europe. Jean-Louis Joris of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, Brussels, looks at the challenges in drafting the law and the potential benefits for multinationals

In May, 12 years into negotiations to create an EU directive on takeovers, Germany suddenly got cold feet. Hartmut Krause of Allen & Overy, Frankfurt, discusses the compromise with the EU it has since won and how it can draft its own legislation to protect German companies from hostile international bids

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.

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

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.