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Annelies van der Pauw Davis, Polk & Wardwell and Allen & Overy have advised on an issue of ordinary shares for the Dutch insurer AEGON. The issue of shares by private placement to investors in The Netherlands and offering to institutional investors outside of the country, was made to finance the acquisition of the direct marketing services of US retail chain JC Penney Company. Allen & Overy partners Annelies van der Pauw and Thomas Werlen advised AEGON on the $1.5 billion while Davis, Polk & Wardwell partner Jeffrey Oakes advised joint book runners and lead managers Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

The Argentine government recently announced a $29.48 billion debt swap of short term bonds for securities with longer-term maturities, deferring debt service costs by approximately $17 billion through the end of 2005. The "mega" exchange reduces financial needs at a time when it is crucial to make room to restore growth and ease fears of a default. The transaction was approved by Decree No. 648 dated May 16 2001.

Some observers have claimed recently that the much-heralded boom in European commercial mortgage-backed securitization will come to nothing. However, as Liz Jones of Norton Rose, London, argues, large innovative deals such as May’s ProLogis and the enthusiasm of investors give grounds for optimism

The Argentine government has passed major legislation that it hopes will increase successful capital markets activity by offering greater investor protection and transparency. Javier Errecondo and Diego Salaverri of Bruchou, Fernández Madero, Lombardi & Mitrani, Buenos Aires, examine the new regime

Australian firm Clayton Utz has advised on the world's largest trade in carbon credits. The deal, completed in Sydney in early June, was struck between Japan's Cosmo Oil and Australian Plantation Timber, and involves the trade of one million CO2 tonnes over an 11-year term. The trading of carbon credits is not a well-established field. The Kyoto Protocol would have provided a framework for such trades but so far no developed nations have ratified the agreement and the withdrawal of US support is likely to bring about its complete collapse.

On May 11 2001, the board of directors Colombian Central Bank (Banco de la República) issued External Resolution No. 2 of 2001 reforming articles 48, 49, 50 and 51 of External Resolution No. 8 of 2000, issued by the same entity, which contains the Foreign Exchange Regime. The articles that were reformed comprise the special foreign exchange regime applicable to the oil, gas & mining sectors in Colombia. The special regime allows certain entities which participate in the oil, gas and mining sector in Colombia not to repatriate to the Colombian foreign exchange market the revenues they receive from sales made by them in foreign currencies.

Hendrik Haag of Hengeler Mueller, Frankfurt, and David Brownwood of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, London, explain the structure of Deutsche Börse’s marketing leading IPO

A number of firms in the Asia-Pacific region were making important strategic appointments last month as lawyers seek to optimize their positioning to take advantage of the active capital markets in the region.

Restructurings that involve either Chinese assets or Chinese joint venture partners can pose real problems for foreign creditors. Raymond Lau, Joe Bannister and John Banks of Lovells, Hong Kong, examine the options available, together with the various cross-border issues that will arise when trying to recover assets from China

Christian Lambie, Allen & Overy Building on the success of its 1999 securitization of the UK's Broadgate shopping centre, Allen & Overy has pulled off a similar deal for UBS Warburg. The UK firm has advised the bank as structurer and lead manager on a £575 million ($812 million) for UK property company British Land in the first of two deals it closed in June in the commercial mortgage-backed securitzation field. The transaction involved the issue of secured and unsecured debt by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) of the British Land Group, backed by rental payments from 35 supermarkets leased by to UK grocer J Sainsburys. The debt was then bought and reissued by an orphan company, Werretown Supermarkets Securitizations, which issued two senior tranches of bonds.