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UK firm Lovell White Durrant has expanded its Chicago practice with the appointment of six lawyers over the last three months. Anne Fortney is the latest to join the niche reinsurance practice, becoming of counsel. She leaves the Washington DC office of Carlsmith Ball Wichman Case & Ichiki, where she was a partner. "Anne is clearly quite a catch," says a Lovell spokesperson. Neal Moglin has also joined the firm as of counsel from rival Kaplan & Begy. Linda Dublow joins from Streich Lang in Chicago; James Chareq from Stuart & Branigin in Indiana; Markus Heyder from Latham & Watkins in Chicago; and Philip Bock from Chicago firm Lord, Bissel & Brook.

US firm White & Case is setting up a trade finance and commodity practice in London. Nicholas Budd, partner at the firm's Paris office, will head the group, which was first launched in France.

On December 6 1996, the ECJ issued one of the most important rulings in recent years in the continuing battle between pharmaceutical companies and 'parallel importers', ie independent traders who are able to undercut prices in expensive markets by importing bulk quantities of medicines from low-price EU countries. The Primecrown case upholds the right of parallel importers under the Single Market rules to buy and sell wherever they choose in the EU and fails to answer the claim of patent holders that parallel imports threaten research.

On January 1 1997 a number of amendments to the Federal Act on Debt Collection and Insolvency of 1889 entered into force. The amendments are aimed at updating and clarifying the Act, without changing its structure. In the field of injunctions to freeze assets as a provisional remedy, three major modifications have been enacted with a view to improve the protection for the debtor and the third party holder of assets:

New procedure for UCIT authorizations

On January 1, the government of Victoria in Australia changed its regulations on law firms. The government felt public confidence was being undermined, for three reasons: the lack of independent regulation, limited information on billing and the restrictive nature of professional practices.

A provisionary measure on money-laundering came into force in September 1996 and a comprehensive law came into force in November. Turkey entered into agreements with Kazakstan, Poland, Egypt, Malaysia, China, India, Algeria and Mongolia for the avoidance of double taxation with respect to taxes on income. The Council of Ministers approved the entry of Turkey to the Cotton Advisory Committee.

With less than five months to go before it returns to Chinese control, Hong Kong is enjoying a surge in the property and securities markets as well as in the overall economy. Confidence is running high. Paul Lee reports

It has generally been the practice of the Inland Revenue of Hong Kong to disallow payments made on the closure of a business as being non-deductible expenses for the purpose of a profits tax computation. The Hong Kong Court of Appeal recently examined this practice in the context of severance (ie redundancy) payments in The Commissioner of Inland Revenue v Cosmotron Manufacturing (Civil Appeal No. 75 of 1996).

On July 25 1996 the Bank of Italy introduced a number of amendments to the Regulations enacted on May 20 1994 to implement Law No. 86/1994 on real estate closed investment funds.