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US firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius may be planning an office in the Russian federation. The firm recently entered into a mutual referral agreement with Rothstein & Shaw, which has offices in Moscow and Almaty, Kazakhstan. Rothstein & Shaw's practice is focused in the areas of corporate and commercial law, securities, real estate and joint ventures. In return, Morgan Lewis has the expertise of its Russian and CIS practice group, which was recently strengthened by four lawyers who joined from Coudert Brothers. Partners Jake Redway and Jan DuBois have experience in providing advice to clients on transactions in the Russian Federation and are supported by associates Adam Deery and Michael Pekowsky. Pekowsky will be resident in the Moscow office of Rothstein & Shaw.

Despite the loss of partners to Morgan Lewis, Coudert Brothers is pressing ahead with its office in St Petersburg, headed by Marian Hagler, a senior associate from the Moscow office. The office will be staffed by Hagler and a Russian associate, and will advise US companies investing in the St Petersburg region, particularly in joint ventures, privatizations and real estate transactions. Partner supervision will be from Moscow and New York.

• US firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton has hired corporate lawyer Andrew Curran from UK firm Lovell White Durrant. Curran, who specializes in mergers and acquisitions, will join Cleary's London office on January 1. Curran will advise Cleary's lawyers in London and throughout Europe on English law (see article on page 15 for comment on this move).

In a market formerly dominated by only one practice area, privatization, lawyers are enjoying the opportunity to offer more general corporate advice. However, this is putting weaker firms under pressure and leading to consolidation. Paul Lee reports

International firms are continuing to formalize their operations in the Italian market. Minnesota-based firm Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly has formed an association with Italian firm, Pisano De Vito Maiano & Catucci. Pisano has offices in both Rome and Milan.

Ruling in favour of the international chemical group Bayer AG, the Court of First Instance has suspended the Commission decision of January 10 1996 which stated that the activities of Bayer Spain and Bayer France, subsidiaries of Bayer AG, constituted an 'agreement' contrary of Article 85 of the EC Treaty.

Lenders always seek to protect their interests over their loans or security when borrowers go into liquidation. However, it has increasingly been of interest to borrowers to know what happens to the loans or security when lenders go into liquidation. The statutory right of set-off in liquidation in Hong Kong in these circumstances was dealt with by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Tam Wing Chuen & Anor v Bank of Credit & Commerce Hong Kong Ltd (in Liquidation) [1996] 1 HKC 692.

The major Hong Kong conglomerates are in the grips of spin-off fever. Cheong Kong, Henderson Land, New World Development and Wai Kee Holdings have all streamlined their operations in the past year through the use of spin-offs.

The Banking (Amendment) Act, passed on May 21 1996, will require locally-incorporated banks to raise their minimum shareholders' funds to approximately US$1 billion from the current minimum of approximately US$540 million.

More and more foreign investors are exploring the opportunities that exist in the undervalued assets of China's enterprises through mergers and acquisitions. Specifically, the takeover of a listed company in China is mainly governed by Section 4 of the Interim Regulations of Shares Issuing and Trading (the Interim Regulations) which was issued by the State Council Securities Committee on April 22 1993. Its major takeover provision is the 30% trigger point such that: