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A report on company law commissioned by the Hong Kong government calls for radical streamlining and a move away from British legislative models. By Cally Jordan of Stikeman, Elliott, Hong Kong

The commission considering financial regulation in Australia has recommended a new format for regulation, aimed at boosting financial services competition. By Don Harding of Freehill Hollingdale & Page, Sydney

The first measure in the long-awaited liberalization of Japanese financial markets has been passed. Naoaki Eguchi, Yasushi Murofushi and Jeremy Pitts, of Tokyo Aoyama Law Office – Baker & McKenzie, Tokyo look at the new foreign exchange regime

Auditors' duty of care

The US$400 million financing of the ECK Generating (ECKG) power plant in Kladno, Czech Republic, has reached financial closure. This is the first independent power project in the Czech Republic to be funded on a project finance basis. The financing is structured in Czech koruna, Deutschmarks and dollars.

The Finnish government recently proposed changes to the regulation of the subscription and purchase of shares in real estate funds aimed at creating a more secure and better regulated means of investing in real property. The new legislation would apply to public limited liability companies (referred to in the proposal as 'real estate funds') through which the public can participate in a fund primarily investing in real estate and shares in real estate companies.

The government of Panama has sold a 49% stake in the country's national telephone company, Intel, in central America's first telecoms privatization. UK telecoms company Cable & Wireless paid US$632 million in cash for the stake, beating rival bidder GTE Corporation of Stamford.

Mireille Quirina, chief counsel Europe for Du Pont, talks to Diana Bentley

UK firm Simmons & Simmons has effectively taken over its Italian associate firm, Grippo e Associati, based in Milan & Rome. The firms have operated together under the name Grippo, Associati e Simmons & Simmons since May 1993. The former managing partner of Simmons & Simmons, Alasdair Neil, has taken up the role of managing director of the Italian offices and is moving to Milan shortly. He says: "We chose to do this because the arrangement was working so well." The new name of the firm will be Simmons & Simmons Grippo. The move follows Clifford Chance's decision to bring some of its Italian partners into the UK partnership, and Freshfields opening Italian offices. However Neil denies it is a way of rewarding the Italian lawyers. "It is a way of taking things to their logical conclusion and demonstrates that they have fully become a part of Simmons & Simmons." Senior partner of the Italian offices, Eugenio Grippo, explains: "The original office was a joint venture, in which Simmons had a smaller interest than Grippo e Associati. Now the Italian group is part and parcel of Simmons & Simmons." The offices will retain his name as long as he stays with the firm, and also, he says, "to remind our clients that we are an Italian firm although we have become more international". As a result of the merger, three Italian partners become partners in Simmons & Simmons: Bruno Gattai, Filippo Pingue and Stefano Speroni. Grippo is already a partner of the UK firm.

The first International Financial Law Review survey of the mergers and acquisitions market has identified the leading firms advising on deals worth US$1 billion or more. By Richard Forster