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Boutique financial services firm MW Cornish & Co will join Arnheim & Co, big six accountant Price Waterhouse's UK law firm, on July 1. Senior partner Martin Cornish becomes head of the Price Waterhouse European legal financial services practice. MW Cornish claims a range of expertise in banking, corporate and corporate finance work, but Arnheim & Co emphasizes the firm's expertise in fund management work. David Newton, Price Waterhouse partner responsible for investment management, says: "The addition of legal expertise is an important step in the development of our Investment Management business. Our ambition is simple: to be recognized as the leading professional advisers to the funds management industry worldwide."

Advanced Micro Devices, one of the largest US manufacturers of microchips, has concluded the financing of a microchip plant in Dresden. This is one of the largest project financings to take place in the former East Germany. Arranger and lead manager Dresdner Bank helped complete syndicated debt finance totalling Dm1.65 billion.

The Danish Act on UCITS is being revised in a proposal tabled in April and which also includes the possibility of establishing 'NON-UCITS' in Denmark.

A new law at last offers insolvent Peruvian companies a better chance of avoiding liquidation. By Ismael Noya De La Piedra and Augusto Cauti Barrantes of Estudio Luis Echecopar García, Lima

Competition between the offshore centres is increasing, especially in the Caribbean. Most are very keen to prove their credentials against money-laundering and cut the risk of scandals. Clare Hepburn reports

The Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE) is preparing the market for a 'big bang' by implementing a major deregulation which will free the fixed trading brokerage commissions and allow stockbrokers to offer and set their fees according to supply and demand. The shake-up could be implemented by July 1997, two years after Cyprus Stock Exchange Law was passed. At present, investors pay a 1% brokerage commission when buying securities, plus 0.15% stamp duty levied by the government, and a further 1% brokerage commission when selling their positions. The fee paid by the brokers to the CSE was most recently reduced to 1 per thousand or 10% of the amount the brokers collect from investors for both inside and outside transactions.

Bankers Trust, the US's seventh-largest bank, is to buy the country's oldest investment bank, Alex. Brown. The US$1.6 billion stock swap acquisition marks the latest erosion of the US's Glass-Steagall legislation separating commercial and investment banks.

Hitherto neglected areas of Islamic commercial law can be used to create an Islamic structure for project finance deals. By Mansoor H Khan of Khan & Associates, Lahore, Pakistan

Allen & Overy has announced further appointments in eastern Europe with three Hungarian lawyers joining associate Kinga Sugar in the Budapest office. The firm's Budapest strategy has been under consideration since August 1996 when the firm reviewed its association with local practice Déri & Co. "When we came into the region we thought the best way to operate was to associate with another firm," says Ian Elder, the London partner responsible for Hungary. "But after a while you get tensions on whether to expand or make certain investments and we decided it was better to be in control of our own destiny." Last month the firm added nine lawyers in Warsaw and Elder says that the right model for the region is shown by Poland where the firm had no local practice to associate with.

Argentine Law 24597 (the Registration Law), published in the Official Gazette on November 22 1995, established that all securities issued by Argentine private sector issuers should be converted to non-endorsable registered form and that no bearer securities should be issued by Argentine private issuers thereafter.