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Caja de Ahorros del Mediterraneo, Spain's fifth-largest savings bank, has bought the Spanish operations of UK bank Abbey National. The deal is valued at £120 million ($195 million).

Since our last Russia update in the March issue of International Tax Review, there have been a number of significant legislative and judicial developments. These include: amendments to the Law on Excise Tax and the Law on Securities Tax; important rulings by the Constitutional Court concerning pension fund contributions for individual entrepreneurs; the confiscation of goods and vehicles by Customs authorities; and enactment of a Federal Law on the 1998 budget.

In a press release of April 19, the Netherlands Council of Ministers approved a bill to amend the fiscal unity regime.

A sudden influx of tax reform in the UK has taken many corporations by surprise. Iain Muir, head of tax at Bass, talks to Oliver Ralph about the challenges involved, and the need for objectivity on all sides of the tax equation

A measure under consideration by the US Senate is designed to extend confidentiality privileges in tax matters. The measure is part of a wider IRS restructuring and reform bill.

Siebe, a UK engineering group, has made an agreed £421 million ($690 million) bid for Eurotherm, a UK-based industrial controls manufacturer. The deal will see Siebe overtake US group Honeywell as the world leader in process automation.

US oil company Arco is to buy Union Texas Petroleum for $3.3 billion. The cash deal includes debt and preferred stock, and will be financed by commercial paper and other short-term borrowings. After-tax savings of at least $85 million a year are expected as a result of the acquisition.

A recent ruling by the European Court of Justice (Safir v Skattemyndigheten, Case C-118/96) has failed to give a clear principle on the subject of the taxation of pension funds. The case related to taxes on life assurance, but some companies had hoped that it would lead to a more general ruling that could apply to pension funds. Multinationals are keen to establish pan-European pension funds to make savings and ease cross-border personnel movements.

Determining place of supply is a critical issue for VAT purposes. Richard Iferenta and Victoria Nelson of Simmons & Simmons, London look at how to navigate a logical path through areas of uncertainty, using the guidance offered by ECJ rulings

Since April 1996, the French tax authorities have been able to require specific information as regards intra-group transactions, according to a strict procedure (article L13B of the French tax code for tax procedures). If the response of the enterprise is considered insufficient, there is a risk of a fine of Ffr50,000 ($8,300) for each financial year the request concerns. The tax authorities can make their own tax basis assessment from whatever information is available to them (although the procedure remains adversarial).