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More than a year has passed since the inception of Singapore’s seven legal joint ventures – the city state’s first step towards being part of the global legal profession. With one JV down and the others facing the challenges of integration, Nick Ferguson reports from Singapore on the progress made and lessons learned

The New Economic Regulations Act (loi sur les Nouvelles Régulations Economique, or NRE), which came into force in May 2001, has introduced a wide range of provisions to strengthen the legislative framework in the fields of competition law, company law and banking law.

With the storm clouds of recession gathering, and teams being slashed back home, US firms might be expected to be retreating into fortress Wall Street to keep out of the rain. Instead, many are counting on a European recovery to balance any losses in the US, and are using London as their base camp. Tom Williams reports

Jasper Evans, Martin Krause and Peter Waltz of Linklaters Oppenhoff & Rädler, Frankfurt, answer some of the key questions companies face when planning an issue of exchangeable or convertible bonds in Germany

US firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is the latest firm to move into Germany, after it confirmed last month that it was the mystery firm hiring the four partners that resigned from BBLP Beiten, Burkhardt Mittl & Wegener in July. At the same time, accountancy firm KPMG has denied reports that its local legal arm is to merge with the beleaguered German firm.

Sullivan & Cromwell has moved one of its senior partners to Frankfurt in a bid to strengthen its financial institutions practice in Europe and expand its local team.

China’s membership of WTO may not be the answer to foreign law firms’ sluggish Asian practices. While 1.3 billion people represents an exciting potential, there is a long way to go before China proves capable of winning the full confidence of major-league investors. Nick Ferguson reports

French boutique firm Bredin Prat has poached a senior partner from the breakaway Paris arm of Dutch firm Stibbe. Stibbe Paris is in merger talks with US firm Latham & Watkins. Competition specialist Hughes Calvet is to join the French mergers and acquisitions boutique in September, ending a seven-year tenancy at Stibbe. Calvet says his decision was not connected to Stibbe's talks with Latham & Watkins and that Bredin Prat was simply better suited to his area of practice. "Joining a firm like Bredin Prat would be a positive prospect for any lawyer in Paris," he says. "I think there is room for a boutique firm that focuses on top end work."

Richard Walker, director of enforcement for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has quit the regulator after 10 years of service in another blow to the Commission's recruitment needs. Walker's decision to leave the regulator for more lucrative rewards in industry mirrors increasingly frequent moves by the SEC's lawyers, accountants and examiners. Acting SEC chairman Laura Unger has been reported as stating that high-level departures at the watchdog have created a "staffing crisis".

Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood has closed Asia's first whole-business securitization, using Malaysia's UK-style insolvency and security laws to structure a deal robust enough to satisfy the rating agencies. The $250 million floating rate secured note benchmark deal, arranged by Nomura International for 1st Silicon, a new silicon water fabrication plant in Sarawak, has created the potential to use whole-business legal technology elsewhere in the region.