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The May 1996 edition of International Financial Law Review (see page 50) reported that the New Zealand government planned to abolish the right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The government has recently announced that it has scrapped this plan.

The landmark Provisional Regulations on the Administration of Qualifications of Domestic and Foreign Securities Institutions Dealing in Foreign Investment Shares became effective on December 1 1996. The regulations aim to standardize the qualifications of domestic and foreign securities institutions, such as brokerages and underwriters, that deal in foreign investment shares listed on the Chinese market and domestic securities institutions that deal in foreign investment shares listed outside China.

The Arbitration and Mediation Centre of the Chamber of Commerce of Santiago has proved to be an efficient alternative for the resolution of business disputes in Chile. Around 25 disputes were submitted to the Centre in 1995 and 1996 and the majority were resolved by agreement of the parties with the participation of the arbitrators. Typically, the first phase of arbitration consists of a conciliation effort on the part of the arbitrator exploring alternatives to a negotiated settlement.

Cravath, Swaine & Moore, New York, is representing the US drugstore chain Revco in its acquisition by rival CVS. The US$2.8 billion stock swap merger will mean CVS becomes the US's second largest drugstore chain by sales.The team of Cravath lawyers comprises corporate partners Alan Stephenson, Philip Gelston and Richard Hall, assisted by corporate associates Caroline Gottschalk, Andrew Woeber, Richard Cundiff and Andrew Pitts. Partner Michael Schler and associate Craig McCracken are advising on tax law, while senior attorney Henry Morgenbesser and associate Scott Price are handling employee benefits issues. Also advising is senior attorney Jeffrey Smith, specializing in environmental law, and special antitrust counsel is Louis Sernoff from Baker & Hostetler, Washington DC.

US industrial equipment group Ingersoll-Rand acquired Newman Tonks, a UK architectural hardware company, in an agreed £230 million (US$368 million) bid.

Reforms last year gave Brazilian traders the opportunity to lend stock in an organized market for the first time. Fernando Prado Ferreira and Guilherme de Almeida Leite of Pinheiro Neto, São Paulo, look at the system in practice

As investors are no doubt aware, 1997 is shaping up to be year of major privatizations among state-owned Spanish companies. This process has already begun with the recent public offering of the remaining state-held shares of Telefónica of España.

Earlier (see International Financial Law Review, October 1996, page 46) briefings on changes brought about by the EU Company Law Amendment Act 1996 focused on those provisions which have a particular effect on the Austrian banking sector. The following seeks to provide a more general outline of the contents of the Act.

The Singapore Stock Exchange introduced a new Chapter 9A to its Listing Manual. The new provisions apply to transactions between:

By Decree 253 of February 1997, the Colombian government, using its powers under the economic emergency decree, has announced that it will sell its controlling interest in the coal mine known as El Cerrejón North, located in the Guajira region of northern Colombia. El Cerrejón is one of the world's larger coal mines, with an annual output of 16.5 million metric tons of bituminous thermal coal, and total reserves of some 4,600 million metric tons. The government owns a 50% interest in El Cerrejón North (through Carbocol, a state-owned corporation), with the other 50% owned by Intercor, a wholly-owned Colombian subsidiary of Exxon Corporation.