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After months of stalemate in its campaign against harmful tax practices, the OECD has finally made some progress. Though the extended commitment deadline was February 28 this year, 13 of the 35 jurisdictions listed as havens on the organization's 2000 report have given letters of commitment dated on or after February 27. Under the revised conditions the territories must commit to implementing transparency and effective exchange of information by December 31 2005. The Maldives, Tonga and Barbados were removed from the list without committing after satisfying the OECD that they no longer met the qualifying criteria of tax havens. With refusals to commit from Vanuatu, Samoa and the Marshall Islands together with the countries that had already committed, that leaves just seven countries yet to make an announcement.

Once again, all eyes have been on Andersen this month, and the spectacle has not disappointed. The remaining big four have been involved in merger discussions for all or part of the ailing firm, the network is breaking up and Joseph Berardino, the CEO, has stepped down in an attempt to save the US firm. Finally, according to reports in the Financial Times, Andersen is set to cut up to 6000 jobs in the US.

Relations between the US and the EU continue to decline. The WTO arbitration panel is still deciding on the amount of compensation the EU can claim over the US Extraterritoral Income Exclusion Act (ETI). Before that there were rows over bananas. This time the issue is steel.

KPMG’s ambition for a union with the non-US operations of beleaguered Andersen has taken another knock as partners in Andersen’s Spanish arm voted on April 1 to merge with Deloitte & Touche

Ernst & Young and Andersen announced on March 28 that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to integrate Andersen Australia into Ernst & Young

At the end of 2001, British Telecommunications demerged its wireless business. The transaction provides a good example of how UK demergers can be effected without material tax costs for a company and its UK shareholders. By Mark Kingstone, Tom Scott and Lynne Walkington of Linklaters, London

The Exodus acquisition marks the end of a restructuring process at Cable & Wireless that has seen the company transformed from consumer telecoms provider to business internet protocol (IP) and data provider in little over two years. And while the company's tax group has been kept busy with numerous transactions throughout the transformation, it too has been restructured.

DATE TYPE OF DEAL VALUE TARGET ACQUIRER/ ISSUER HOLDER/ UNDERWITER ADVISERS TO TARGET ADVISERS TO ACQUIRER/ ISSUER ADVISERS TO HOLDER/ UNDERWRITER 28/2/02 disposal £560 million ($796 million) Malibu Allied Domecq (UK) Diageo (UK) n/a Linklaters, London, Guy Brannan, Guy Dingley, Clare Carpenter; New York, Valerie Leipheimer; in-house Michael Kennedy Slaughter and May; London Steve Edge, Charles Goddard 3/3/02 disposal £250 million ($355.7 million) Land Securities (UK) client of REIT Asset Management (UK) n/a Nabarro Nathanson, London, Nick Burt n/a n/a 6/3/02 sale and

The French tax authorities have issued new guidelines (Instruction 4 J-1-02, January 3 2002) on the provisions of the Finance Bill 2001 that reduced the rate of the avoir fiscal for tax credits used in 2001 and 2002. In particular, the authorities comment on these provisions with regard to the situation of non-French residents.

Spain implemented the EU parent-subsidiary directive 90/435 in 1991 with some anti-abuse clauses (under article 1.2 of the directive). These clauses deny a tax exemption on dividends when the majority of the voting rights of the EU parent is directly or indirectly held by companies or individuals that are non-EU residents. This limitation does not apply if: