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Providing heartening news for Latin America's technology sector, Chile's Certifica.com this March became one of the first internet companies on the continent to attract venture capital since US tech-stocks crashed last year. Advised by Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, Certifica completed its first round of financing early in March, raising $3.3 million. Compared to Silicon Valley financings the numbers are small, but according to one investor completion of the deal is a key step in developing Latin America's web economy.

Slaughter and May will lose its most senior securitization partner this month, as part of a series of wider practice head appointments at the UK firm. Securitization specialist Rupert Beaumont is to retire from the firm at the end of April, leaving Christopher Smith as the most senior partner in the group and coordinator of the capital markets effort at the UK firm.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal has launched a practice to help businesses manage weather-related risk using weather derivatives, claiming the new global service is the first of its kind.

Paris lawyers have reacted calmly to new rules govering initial public offerings (IPOs) published by the regulator of the Paris Stock Exchange, the Commissions Opérations des Bourses (COB). Responding to growing pressure following the collapse of technology share values and fears that venture capitalists and dot.com founders were able to exploit existing rules at the expense of public investors, the COB last month issued a statement which local lawyers say simply clarifies existing guidelines.

Observers believe that new legislation in Ukraine will help give the country’s banking system progressive, international standards to adhere to. Myron Rabij of Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn, Kiev, assesses the reforms

Ian Garth McGill and Tom Poulton Allen Allen & Helmsley and Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks have agreed to merge. After a 15-year courtship the two firms have finally agreed to formalise its relationship.

The referral of powers from states to the federal government is a necessary prelude to the enactment of Australia’s corporations legislation. Don Harding, a partner of Freehills in Sydney, explains how the Corporations (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2001 of New South Wales provides a model for juggling constitutional concerns

One of Clifford Chance's most senior asset finance partners has left the UK firm to become a director in the leasing and tax-based finance group of ANZ Investment Bank in London. The departure has forced the UK firm to rejig the lawyers in its asset finance team.

Derivatives have traditionally been viewed as forbidden territory to insurance companies. But is this always true? Maria Ross and Charlotte Davies of Norton Rose, London, ask if the two can be reconciled

Many senior Canadian issuers access the Canadian capital markets through the shelf prospectus system, which allows an issuer which meets certain criteria to issue securities over a two-year period. A shelf prospectus is filed qualifying the total amount of securities which the issuer expects to issue over a two-year period and the issuer then issues securities in tranches depending on market conditions and its needs.