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The Brazilian tax authorities have completed their annual round of corporate tax changes. Abel Simão Amaro and Lionel Pimentel Nobre, of Amaro, Stuber e Advogados Associados, Rio de Janeiro, look in detail at the key issues facing foreign investors

Linklaters has designed an extranet service to open up communication between the law firm and its clients. The service, called clients@linklaters, is unlike services provided by other firms, and differs from Linklaters' own Blue Flag project, which offers specific advice on particular products.

Four tax lawyers from Thelen, Reid & Priest have joined McDermott, Will & Emery's New York office. The group, headed by partner and former chair of Thelen Reid's tax practice, David Hardy, includes partner Laurie Marsh, and associates Philip Francis O'Reilly and Laura Brandt. Their practice will continue to focus specifically on the energy and utility industries.

US law firm Dewey Ballantine has expanded its London office with the recruitment of 11 new lawyers.

Deloitte & Touche has again been busy handpicking big names from government. Following the high-profile appointment of John Lyons from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) earlier this year (see ITR May 00), the firm has recruited a further three ex-government professionals from around the world. The firm's transfer pricing and competent authority capabilities are strengthened with the appointment of Prof. Dr Berndt Runge, former head of the international tax division in the Ministry of Finance in Berlin, and Daniel O'Mahony, a former competent authority specialist with the UK Inland Revenue's International Division. Runge will be working out of WEDIT Deloitte & Touche's Düsseldorf office, while O'Mahony will be based in London. The third appointment is that of Michael Danilack, former associate chief counsel (international) for the IRS, who assumes the role of principal and director of International Tax Services in the National Tax Office in Washington DC.

Davis Polk & Wardwell is advising Enersis on a rights offering to its shareholders of up to $1 billion in newly issued ordinary shares. The Chile-based Enersis is the leading private sector electric utility company in Latin America. Partner Michael Mollerus and associate Lin Shaw, of the New York office are providing tax advice on the issue.

Taxpayers are still testing the waters in the matter of how the UK Inland Revenue manages its advance pricing agreement process. Peter Nias of McDermott, Will & Emery, London describes the ins and outs of a recent case in which he was involved

Michael Ryan, a tax consultant at KPMG Dublin, has joined Dublin solicitors McCann FitzGerald as head of tax. Ryan had been at KPMG for 20 years and had not been looking to leave when McCann approached him. According to Ryan, the chance to head up the tax division at a firm with such a high reputation as McCann was too tempting an offer to refuse, particularly as he had not reached full partner at KPMG. "I'm not the type of person who moves around a lot. I'd been with KPMG for 20 years and it was a difficult decision to make. KPMG did their best to hold on to me. But this was a new opportunity and one that I will excel at ? that's what it's about. "Coming from accounting, the benefit is that you approach problems with a view to coming up with solutions, whereas lawyers are more interested in establishing the legal position of a transaction. I offer a different perspective," he said.

Lloyds TSB Group has acquired the Chartered Trust Group Plc and ACL Autolease Holdings, the UK consumer finance and contract hire subsidiaries of Standard Chartered Bank.

The British utility National Grid is to acquire Niagara Mohawk Holdings, the second-biggest energy company in New York State, for $3 billion cash and $5 billion in assumed debt.