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New provisions appear in a revised Code of Banking Practice dealing with debt collection agencies in Hong Kong. These are significant in that they prohibit the use of certain improper or harassment tactics and require banks and financial institutions authorized under the Banking Ordinance (AIs) to stop collecting debts once the debtor is adjudged bankrupt. They also impose systems and procedures for the selection of debt collectors and the monitoring of their performance. AIs are required to comply with the revised Code on or before June 1 2002.

Two years ago the Nordic region was riding high on the technology wave but the capital markets have crashed and the region’s tech-heavy stock exchanges have suffered more than most. By Stephen Hoare

Davis Polk and Hengeler advise banks on Rentenbank offering Davis Polk & Wardwell and Hengeler Mueller have advised Merrill Lynch, Pierce Fenner & Smith, BNP Paribas Securities and UBS as lead managers of a $1.25 billion offering of 4.875% notes by Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank due 2007.

White & Case and Allen & Overy have advised on the first initial public offering (IPO) by a German company this year. Wind power company REpower Systems completed its €94.3 million ($83.2 million) listing on the Neuer Markt at the end of last month. The offering included a Rule 144A private placement in the US and a regulation S private placement outside the country.

Linklaters and Herbert Smith are advising on the UK's largest, most complex restructuring in the utility sector. The restructuring of Anglian Water Group (AWG) will ringfence £1.9 billion ($2.75 billion) of existing debt and raise a further £1.6 billion in new debt.

Uría y Menéndez and former Andersen ally J&A Garrigues are working on what may be one of the largest initial public offerings in Spain this year. Gas Natural's €1.6 billion ($1.4 billion) sale of Enagas, its gas distribution arm, is one of the first steps in a drive to liberalize the country's energy markets and is expected to breathe new life into Spain's capital markets.

Bharti Tele-Ventures has succesfully completed its IPO, making it the first Indian mobile phone company to list publicly. Jones Day and Pathak & Associates, its Indian affiliate, advised the issuer. Shearman & Sterling and Little & Co advised the Indian affiliates of JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch, the book-running lead managers. The deal was postponed on several occasions thanks to market conditions in the US. The company originally announced its intention to list both in India and in the US, but scaled back its plans. Now, two years after starting work, Bharti has seized a window of opporunity and listed on the Delhi, Mumbai and National stock exchanges, making it one of India's top-10 listed companies in terms of market capitalization. The company has ruled out an issue of American depository receipts for the time being.

Non-US issuers of mortgage- and asset-backed securities stand to benefit from two recent Australian offerings. Teams at Clayton Utz and Allens Arthur Robinson in Sydney have closed the first globally offered securitizations issued off an SEC shelf registration, paving the way for other foreign issuers. Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw in New York also played a crucial role at the SEC, winning approval for Commonwealth Bank of Australia's 2002-1G Medallion Trust, which became the first structured finance transaction conducted by a non-US issuer using an SEC Form S-3 registered shelf prospectus.

Derivatives specialists have been trying hard to defend their business in the wake of the collapse of Enron. At its annual general meeting the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) went as far as issuing a detailed rebuttal of claims that the market needs tighter regulation. "The market in the end exercised the ultimate sanction over [Enron]" its release asserts. But, try as they might, derivatives specialists cannot shake off all of the blame for the scandal. Now lawyers, too, have begun to suggest the markets may not be whiter than white. Though Enron's chief crime was to lie about how much it was really making, the company's collapse hides a quirk of the derivatives market that could bring down another organization if it goes unnoticed.

To lose one managing partner may be regarded as a misfortune. But Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's loss of two might seem to some like carelessness. To others, with a more sensible frame of mind, it may appear as a coincidence. In response to media reports in the UK Freshfields is keen to dismiss talk of a management shake-up within its Asian network after the announcement that the managing partners of two of its biggest offices will soon be stepping down. Charles Stevens, the present managing partner of the Tokyo office, plans to retire in the autumn after five years with Freshfields and, in a separate move, Roger Dyer will be replaced in Singapore by David Simpson.