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McKenna & Co has announced that it has taken five lawyers from UK rival Nabarro Nathanson, establishing 'the number one real estate practice in Warsaw'. Resident Nabarro partner Steven Shone has moved with three of his property team to McKenna & Co with one more set to join.

Volker Potthoff, general counsel to the Deutsche Börse, Frankfurt, talks to Graham Field

• US firm Weil Gotshal & Manges has hired senior corporate associate Andrew Harting from the New York office of UK firm Freshfields. He will join the London office of Weil Gotshal & Manges.

US Supreme Court limits punitive damages

Under Swedish law, a parent company owning more than nine-tenths of the shares with more than nine-tenths of the votes in a subsidiary has the right to redeem the remaining shares from the minority shareholders. The value of a minority share in such a situation must in principle correspond to the value of a majority share. If the parent company has acquired the greater portion of the shares through an offer to an extended group of persons for certain consideration, then the redemption sum shall be equivalent to that consideration, unless there is a special reason otherwise.

Publication of a draft Third Financial Markets Promotion Act (Drittes Finanzmarktförderungsgesetz) aimed at further enhancing the economic and legal framework for the operation of the German capital markets is now imminent. A number of the key changes to be introduced by the proposed Act are:

Incoporating the EU Second Banking Directive into Spanish national law, Law 3/1994 regulates the basic aspects of Financial Credit Establishments (Esteblacimientos Financieros de Crédito, or EFCs), which have been further developed by recently-approved regulations. As a result, certain Spanish credit institutions have until the end of the year to comply with the new requirements.

A question frequently raised both among members of the offshore community and the authorities in Cyprus is whether the existing favourable offshore tax regime will be affected in any way by the proposed accession to the EU.

The Bank of Italy has introduced changes to Chapter XII of its Regulations concerning the issue of bonds by Italian banks. These have the effect that the existing distinctions made between different types of issuing banks according to their capital base have been abolished. As a consequence, banks with a capital base of less than L50 billion (US$ 196 million) are now allowed to issue bonds with a denomination of at least L5 million provided that the issue has 'market characteristics'.

Jane M Freeberg of Watson, Farley & Williams, New York, considers the controversial Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, which is viewed by the EU as an American attempt to dictate foreign policy