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UK firm Lovell White Durrant is to open for business in Russia. In charge of setting up a Moscow office is partner Christopher Smith, head of Lovell's Central and Eastern European practice and of the Prague office. Smith previously set up the firm's Beijing office and will be dividing his time between Moscow and Prague. Resident head of the office will be Daniel Gogek, an associate who moves from Freshfields' Moscow office. He was previously at White & Case and Coudert Brothers. Freshfields partner Christian Salbang worked closely with him and says: "The last we knew was that he had decided to leave the law and go back to Canada to work in business, so it is rather a surprise. But he is a competent fellow with a lot of experience and I hope he finds at Lovell what he wasn't able to find at Freshfields."

US firm Chadbourne & Parke has installed recently-acquired project finance partner Ian Johnson as head of a new office in Singapore. Joining him there is senior associate Bruce Rader, who moves to Singapore from New York. The office opened on April 14, and will focus on project finance, capital markets and cross-border transactions. It aims to strengthen the firm's Asian presence and complement the Hong Kong office.

Allen & Overy's Warsaw office will be joined by two partners and seven Polish associates from May 1 after UK firm Nabarro Nathanson agreed to close its office and transfer the staff and clients to Allen & Overy. English resident partner Michael Davies, who set up the Nabarro Nathanson office in 1991, joins Allen & Overy as a partner in Warsaw with Polish lawyer Tomasz Dobrowolski. Nabarro's senior partner David Bramson says the move followed a review of strategy. "We have terrific people there but we wanted them to find a safe haven because to make the Warsaw office fly we would have had to put in at least £1 million," he comments.

Coudert Brothers has added four project finance partners from the Washington office of McDermott, Will & Emery. Partners Charles Friedlander, George Knapp, Roger Stark and Roger Wagner have practised together since 1985. They joined Coudert's 75-lawyer International Finance Practice Group on March 19 1997. Knapp highlights the international reach of Coudert as the reason for the decision to leave McDermott. "Coudert is one of the only US firms, perhaps the only US firm, with a truly global presence. Coudert covers every region where our clients plan to be."

The new Argentine financial instrument available from the middle of this month offers smaller companies a way to cut the credit risk burden. By Rodolfo Gerardo Papa of Cardenas, Cassagne & Asociados, Buenos Aires

• UK firm Simmons & Simmons has appointed partner Huen Wong to the new role of China managing partner. This involves heading the Hong Kong and Shanghai offices and integrating them in preparation for the handover of Hong Kong to China at the end of June.

The recent law implementing EU financial services policy in France has introduced ‘regulated markets’, ‘market enterprises’ and other new concepts. By Antoine Maffei of De Pardieu Brocas Maffei & Associés, Paris

Privatization of mining group

Treasury Ministry Decree No. 703 of November 21 1996 setting out the criteria to be followed by the management of pension funds with regard to investments and the limits on investments and derivatives transactions has been published in the Official Gazette and is now in force.

At the end of 1995 the Danish parliament decided that the rules on the rights and duties of of the management of financial institutions (insurance companies, banks, stockbroker firms, pension funds and so on) should be harmonized and, where appropriate, tightened. In February of this year, the Ministry of Economy, which now encompasses the Financial Supervisor, submitted its proposal on the matter to other ministries and interested bodies for comment.