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Gesina van de Wetering will join Norton Rose in Amsterdam in January 2003 from De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek specializing in EU tax law as well as corporate income tax in relation to structured finance, capital markets, private equity, funds and M&A. Her clients include banks and Italian utility company Enel and she expects that several of them will follow her to Norton Rose.

Bruno Solle: Leaving BFL for Jeanet Associes French law firm Bureau Francis Léfèbvre (BFL) has lost two teams of lawyers (including four partners) to rival French firms. A team of six tax lawyers led by Renaud Streichenberger joined Bredin Prat in November and a four-lawyer team of M&A and tax lawyers is joining Jeantet Associes in January 2003. A tax associate has also left BFL for Clifford Chance. Traditionally BFL has a reputation for retaining its lawyers and the departure of so many lawyers within such a short time frame is surprising.

Type of deal Value Acquirer Target Adviser to acquirer (tax) Adviser to target (tax) merger undisclosed Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, West Indies Holdings Barclays Caribbean Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London, Jonathan Cooklin, Sebastian Lawson-Foia Clifford Chance, London, Douglas French disposal $1.5 billion State Street parts of Deutsche Bank's global securities services business Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, New York, Eiko Stange, Joshua Holmes; Linklaters, London, Liz Conway, Conor Brindley; Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson Shearman & Sterling, New York, Peter Lyons; London, Michael McGowan, Iain Scoon, John Peterson, Esther Jeapes; Munich, Gottfried Breuninger, Arnd Weissgerber acquisition $1.16 billion LW Investments (Barclay Brothers) Littlewoods Lovells, London, Daniel Friel, Mathew Oliver, Philip Harle Herbert Smith, London, Howard Murray, Rob Young acquisition $14 billion HSBC Holdings Household International Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, New York, Yaron Reich, David Arroyo; Norton Rose, London, Chris Norfolk Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, New York, Jared Rusman, Joshua Holmes acquisition $1.25 billion NBC Bravo owned by Cablevision Systems. In return for NBC's ownership of Cablevision and Rainbow Media. MGM also sold its 20% interest in Bravo to NBC. Shearman & Sterling, New York, Washington, Laurence Bambino, Edward Park Sullivan & Cromwell, New York, William Indoe, Andrew Mason, John Sweet; Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson advised MGM, New York, Joel Scharfstein acquisition £900 million ($1.43 billion) Argos Homebase Group, owned by Permira Funds Linklaters, London, Guy Brannan, Stephen Pevsner Clifford Chance, London, James Plummer merger £1.25 billion ($1.99 billion) Logica CMG Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London, Francis Sandison, Charlotte Jones Linklaters, London, Victoria Garton, Mark Kingstone disposal undisclosed Bain Capital SigmaKalon (paints group of TotalFinaElf) Ashurst Morris Crisp, Paris, Thomas Forschbach, Landwell & Associes Freshfields, Paris, Antoine Colonna D'Istria; London, Francis Sandison leveraged buy-out/disposal $1.7 billion Bain Capital Partners; Thomas H Lee Partners Houghton Mifflin owned by Vivendi Universal Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, New York, Gary Mandel; London, Meredith Jones Weil Gotshal & Manges, New York, Kimberly Blanchard acquisition £1.4 billion ($2.24 billion) Powergen TXU Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London, Colin Hargreaves, Caspar Fox Herbert Smith, London, Neil Warriner, Derek Hill, Nikol Davies, Maxim Sokov

Under the direction of Manuel Solano, Ernst & Young's International Tax Services Latin America Network dominates the industry. Our experience in advising clients, combined with our extensive knowledge of Latin American tax systems, is unparalleled. We understand the diversity of countries in the region and the cultural singularities of each jurisdiction.

The UK's pre-Budget report introduces some key changes in the way the Inland Revenue determines permanent establishments and how it calculates stamp duty. Gary Richards of Weil Gotshal & Manges works out what it all means for business

Changes to the employee benefit trust scheme announced in the UK pre-budget report could cost London’s financial community hundreds of millions of dollars

Luxembourg has threatened to undermine the European Commission’s savings tax directive unless the European Commission forces Switzerland to abandon its banking secrecy

A debt-to-equity swap (DES) is a term used for an exchange between a debt and an equity resulting from an agreement between the creditor and the debtor. It is performed when the debtor needs positive net equity or needs to improve its financial condition by reducing interest-bearing debts. The DES may take place as a result of a legal requirement, a private agreement between the debtor and creditor, or both.

The draft Tax Preferences Reduction Act (Steuervergünstigungsabbaugesetz or StVergAbG), which the German government announced in mid-October, released in early November, and then significantly modified just two weeks later, includes the most important changes in German transfer pricing law since the enactment of the Foreign Transactions Tax Act (Außensteuergesetz or AStG) in 1971. The new measures, passage of which is probable but not certain, represent a legislative response to the Federal Tax Court (Bundesfinanzhof) decision of October 17 2001, which held, among other things, that there is no basis in current German tax law for special transfer price documentation requirements (see articles by Alexander Vögele and William Bader in International Tax Review September 2001 p45 and February 2002 p22). The new rules would apply beginning with fiscal year 2003 (fiscal year 2003/2004 for non-calendar-year taxpayers) and hence take effect almost immediately.

The Russian State Duma (the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament) has recently passed and the Federation Council (the upper chamber) has approved a set of laws ratifying double tax treaties and protocols between Russia and a number of countries, in particular, Austria, Indonesia, Kuwait, Norway, Portugal and Sri Lanka, as well as a new protocol to the double tax treaty between Russia and Finland.