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Kevin Muzilla US firms Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and Weil, Gotshal & Manges have advised on the first refinancing this year of a leveraged buy-out (LBO). The firms acted for lead manager Deutsche Bank and United Biscuits respectively on the $326 million refinancing of last year's LBO of UK biscuit maker by the Finalream consortium, which included Cinven, Paribas Affaire Industrielles, DB Capital Partners and Nabisco The refinancing of the United Biscuits LBO was done through a high-yield bond issue of two of senior subordinated notes, one of £120 million ($173 million) at 10% and redeemable in 2011 and the other of euro 160 million ($143 million) also due in 2011.

Lucent Technologies, advised by Cravath, Swaine &Moore, finally pulled off a $3.6 billion initial public offering (IPO) of its optoelectronics division, Agere Systems, in late March, bringing a welcome boost to equity work for some lawyers in the US.

Linklaters & Alliance member De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek is set to become the first Dutch firm to open in China. De Brauw, along with ten other firms, got its licence from the Chinese ministry of justice in Beijing in the latest round of licence distribution. The office will open in Shanghai in September, complementing Linklaters' exisiting office in Beijing. De Brauw's other offices are in Brussels, London, New York and Prague.

Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells has grabbed a fourth bankruptcy lawyer from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius' New York office. Scott Talmadge joined this April, reuniting with former colleagues Margot Schonholtz, Mark Liscio and Jill Kurtzman, who were recruited by Clifford Chance a year ago to develop the financial restructuring practice group.

David Webb has long been a crusader against Hong Kong’s crony capitalism, but now he has upped the ante and is challenging the government to debate the issue of corporate governance openly. Nick Ferguson reports

France must clarify whether its usury laws apply to corporate bonds if its high-yield market is to develop, say Eric Cafritz and Delphine Caramalli of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in Paris

On June 4 2001, Mexico enacted a new Investment Companies Law (Ley de sociedades de inversión, or ICL). Most of the provisions of the new ICL became effective on December 4 2001, and all remaining provisions became effective as of January 1 2002. The ICL is the most recent attempt by the Mexican regulatory authorities to improve and modernize the asset management industry. It provides for very important changes to the way the industry will be shaped in the future. Although the regulators are still analyzing the issuance of specific regulations, we hope that they will be finalized and issued no later than the second half of 2002. The intent is to give a boost to the industry and to try to raise it to international standards. When compared to the macroeconomic size of asset management in other countries, we envision that the Mexican market has a potential growth rate of at least 30% per year over the next 10 years. In fact, the average growth rate of the industry during 2001 was approximately 67%, during the last three years it averaged 40% growth per year.

The Capital Market Board (CMB) is using its best efforts in order to ensure a transparent environment, enabling investors and publicly held companies to become part of a sound and prosperous market. As a result of these efforts it has promulgated several new communiqués.

Pursuant to Article 7, Paragraph 4, of the Federal Investment Fund Act (IFA), the name of a Swiss investment fund must not give rise to deception or confusion. A foreign investment fund will also be granted a distribution licence only if these requirements are observed (Article 45, Paragraph 4, IFA). The appendix to the Guidelines for Applications for the Approval of Fund Regulations issued by the Swiss Federal Banking Commission on December 18 2001, therefore, are also applicable to foreign investment funds.

Article 113 of Law No 267 of August 18 2000, regulating modalities for the management of local public services, has been recently amended by Article 35 of Law No 448 of December 28 2001 (the 2002 Financial Law).