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By Hans Georg Wille of Andersen Legal, Oslo

By Miguel Angel Quintana of Noriega y Escobedo

By Chris Fonteijn and Reijnoud Homveld of Nauta Dutilh, Rotterdam

By Jan Waselius & Mikko Eerola of Waselius & Wist, Helsinki

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has signaled that a degree of confidence in Russian industry may be returning by signing its largest loan to a Russian company since 1993. If the signals are correct, law firms will want to be well placed to take advantage of the returning work. For this transaction, White & Case and Allen & Overy have secured the mandates.

Clyde & Co appoints new partners

The London office of White & Case has secured the services of Maurice Allen, the founder of Weil, Gotshal & Manges’ London practice. Allen arrives with another three partners from Weil Gotshal: Martin Hughes, Rachel Hatfield and Mark Western.

New capital market initiative launched The New Capital Market (NCM) is an initiative by the New Zealand Stock Exchange designed primarily to assist small and medium-sized companies in raising capital for new growth-oriented businesses. It is envisaged that strong incentives – in particular simplified disclosure and reduced listing and brokerage fees – will encourage companies to enter the NCM and eventually graduate to full listing on the main board of the stock exchange.

Uzbekistan adopts single currency exchange rate The Uzbekistan government has taken the long-awaited first step towards liberalizing the country's harsh currency controls. In typical Uzbek fashion, this first step — contained in Resolution No. 171 of the Cabinet of Ministers "On the Improvement of the Procedure for Accounting and Reporting with Respect to Currency and Export-Import Operations," April 28 2000 — is extremely limited and, in some respects, even secretive. Nonetheless, the fact that the government has taken any action at all is likely to be welcomed by foreign investors and multilateral financial institutions, which have pressured the government for some time to lift its controls and make the local currency — the soum — freely convertible.

European Energy Exchange and the Swiss Stock Exchange Act With the deregulation of the European energy markets, prices for energy have become increasingly volatile. This has led power companies to use financial instruments to offset price risks (hedging). While energy exchanges in the Netherlands and Scandinavia have already emerged, the evolution of the European Energy Exchange (EEX) is a fairly recent development.