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E-commerce — Irish Senate approves Electronic Commerce Bill 2000 The determination of the Irish government to ensure that Ireland is well positioned to act as a hub for e-commerce business was evidenced in the publication on April 7 of the Electronic Commerce Bill 2000 (the eBill). The government has announced its intention to fast track the eBill through the legislative process with the intention of its becoming law as soon as possible. The eBill made swift progress through the Irish Senate which passed the eBill on April 19. It is expected to receive its next reading in the Irish parliament on May 23.

A number of UK firms have gained the mandate to work on German travel company Preussag's recommended bid for Thomson Travel Group. The bid values Thomson at £1.8 billion ($2.7 billion) and was announced in mid-May.

It is expected that UK firms will win most, if not all, of the five Singapore joint-venture licences on offer. The successful candidates will be announced on July 30.

Deacons and Graham & James have called an end to their 10-year association. As of July 1 Deacons Graham & James will cease to exist. They are parting company after coming to a "crossroad in [their] respective strategies", said Mark Roberts, Deacons' managing partner, in a statement to the press.

The London office of White & Case has secured the services of Maurice Allen, the founder of Weil, Gotshal & Manges’ London practice. Allen arrives with another three partners from Weil Gotshal: Martin Hughes, Rachel Hatfield and Mark Western.

Uzbekistan adopts single currency exchange rate The Uzbekistan government has taken the long-awaited first step towards liberalizing the country's harsh currency controls. In typical Uzbek fashion, this first step — contained in Resolution No. 171 of the Cabinet of Ministers "On the Improvement of the Procedure for Accounting and Reporting with Respect to Currency and Export-Import Operations," April 28 2000 — is extremely limited and, in some respects, even secretive. Nonetheless, the fact that the government has taken any action at all is likely to be welcomed by foreign investors and multilateral financial institutions, which have pressured the government for some time to lift its controls and make the local currency — the soum — freely convertible.

New capital market initiative launched The New Capital Market (NCM) is an initiative by the New Zealand Stock Exchange designed primarily to assist small and medium-sized companies in raising capital for new growth-oriented businesses. It is envisaged that strong incentives – in particular simplified disclosure and reduced listing and brokerage fees – will encourage companies to enter the NCM and eventually graduate to full listing on the main board of the stock exchange.

European Energy Exchange and the Swiss Stock Exchange Act With the deregulation of the European energy markets, prices for energy have become increasingly volatile. This has led power companies to use financial instruments to offset price risks (hedging). While energy exchanges in the Netherlands and Scandinavia have already emerged, the evolution of the European Energy Exchange (EEX) is a fairly recent development.

EU directive on taxation of savings interest The proposed EU directive on the taxation of savings interest is now stalled by disagreements between the different EU member states over the desirability of imposing withholding tax on non-resident investors in the absence of information exchanges between their tax authorities. The proposal has attracted much criticism from financial institutions and the UK government, which has threatened to veto its adoption in its current form. EU government heads and finance ministers are, however, optimistic that a planned meeting in Brussels in June will result in a consensus being reached.

New Portuguese capital markets code introduced After many months of work and research by the regulatory authorities into the Portuguese capital markets, Decree Law 486/99 of November 13 was published, implementing the new Portuguese Capital Markets Code (Código de Valores Mobiliários or CVM).