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On September 11 1997, the Supreme Court of Justice (Oberster Gerichtshof) ruled on basic issues of liability extending to statements or omissions made in issuing prospectuses under general rules of Austrian contract and tort law (6 Ob 2100/96h). Because the transaction in question had taken place in 1978, the Capital Markets Act of 1991 (Kapitalmarktgesetz) and the Stock Exchange Act of 1989 (Börsegesetz), which provide for specific rules regarding liability for material misrepresentations or omissions in prospectuses, were not applicable. The 1989 and 1991 acts do not provide a complete set of liability rules and are supplemented by the liability rules of the Austrian Civil Code. The decision will also have a significant impact on future prospectus liability cases falling outside the scope of the acts, ie where prospectuses are not issued in the course of a public offer.

By a judgment dated April 6 1998, the Danish prime minister was acquitted of charges of unconstitutional conduct in connection with the signing of the EU Treaty. The plaintiff, a group of Danish citizens, alleged that a provision in the constitution stating that surrender of sovereignty may only take place in certain defined cases had been violated.

An Insider Trading Bill is pending before the Cypriot parliament which, when enacted, will constitute a comprehensive legislative code dealing with all aspects of insider trading. The provisions of the Bill are based on the EU Directive on Insider Trading (Dir, 89/592, OJ 1989 No. L334/30) as well as insider trading legislation in the UK. Until the Bill becomes law, insider trading is controlled, albeit unsatisfactorily, by rules derived from general law. The protections against insider trading available under general law may be summarized as follows:

In June 1998, a completely new version of the Act on Company Law Act No. 144/1997 (1997 CXLIV tv a gazdasági társaságokról) will take effect, replacing the old Act No.6/1988. The changes are partly formal, but also of a substantive nature. The new law contains a longer general part, while the special parts are leaner because the repetitive sections on individual company forms have been moved forward into the general part.

On March 11, South Africa further liberalized exchange controls. Most of the changes were effective on announcement.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), the largest provider of telecommunications services in Japan, has completed a US$1 billion SEC-registered global note offering, part of a trend by Japanese corporate issuers to borrow in the international market, rather than from Japanese banks or in the Japanese domestic bond market. The transaction is the first global note offering by NTT and the second recent SEC-registered global note offering by a Japanese issuer. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter acted as global coordinators on the deal advised by Sullivan & Cromwell.

In a landmark judgment of the Texas Supreme Court, a partner at a Houston firm has lost her unfair dismissal case after she was sacked for querying a colleague's bills. Critics of the decision fear the ruling could discourage lawyers from fulfilling their ethical obligations. Houston firm Butler & Binion fired Colette Bohatch after she became concerned about fees charged to a client, Pennzoil, by John McDonald, the managing partner of the Washington office. Bohatch copied portions of McDonald's time diary and asked the firm's managing partner to investigate. The next day McDonald told Bohatch that Pennzoil was dissatisfied with her work. An internal investigation into Bohatch's complaints was carried out but no evidence of wrongdoing was found. Bohatch was advised to find another job and was told to leave the offices a year later.

Partners at UK law firm Wilde Sapte have voted to join the Arthur Andersen legal network. A heads of agreement document will be signed by early April. In London, Wilde Sapte will merge with Garretts, Andersen's existing UK firm. Andersen has been searching for a partner in the UK to bolster Garretts, and is understood to have approached other UK firms including Simmons & Simmons and Lovell White Durrant. It is likely Wilde Sapte's foreign offices will merge with Andersen's global network (which includes some 950 non-tax lawyers; see International Financial Law Review November 1997, page 25), although there is doubt over the future of the firm's Paris office. The managing partner of Wilde Sapte's office in France, Thomas McDonald, left SG Archibald in protest when it linked with Andersen. McDonald declines to comment.

UK firm Cameron McKenna is to incorporate US firm Faegre & Benson's Almaty team into its Kazakstan office. Cameron McKenna adds Faegre's resident partner, Thomas Johnson, and three local Kazak lawyers to its Almaty office, which will now have a total of eight lawyers. This is a further rationalization of the Kazakstan legal market following the merger of Pepper Hamilton & Scheetz's Almaty office with Coudert Brothers (see International Financial Law Review, March 1998, page 4). Faegre & Benson has decided to withdraw from central Asia. James Stephenson, a partner in Minneapolis, says that opening a Kazakstan office in 1992 was based on one particular project. The firm maintained a presence in Almaty but did not have long term objectives in the region. "We reached a point where we needed to invest additional resources in order to capitalize on the office's success," he says. "It is our only office in the region and it simply didn't fit into our strategy." Stephenson says the firm's international practice will concentrate on serving US clients in Europe. Faegre & Benson has an office in Frankfurt and formed an association with UK firm Hobson Audley Hopkins & Wood in August 1997.

Serdar Paksoy, name partner and co-founder of leading Turkish firm Hergüner Bilgen & Paksoy, has walked out on the firm and set up his own practice. Paksoy & Co opened for business in Istanbul on January 1 1998. The reasons for the split are numerous, but include differing views on management, growth and practice areas, says Paksoy. Esin Taboglu, a senior associate at Hergüner Bilgen, has followed Paksoy and will join him as his partner in the new firm. Paksoy & Co has four associates in addition to the two partners, including a former associate at Hergüner Bilgen.