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The latest offshore exchange to open will be of particular interest to mutual funds formed but not listed in the Caribbean tax-free jurisdiction. By Chris Narborough and Andrew Kidd of Truman Bodden & Company, Grand Cayman

Reforms last year gave Brazilian traders the opportunity to lend stock in an organized market for the first time. Fernando Prado Ferreira and Guilherme de Almeida Leite of Pinheiro Neto, São Paulo, look at the system in practice

The regulations which recently came into force in China have created problems in the area of foreign-sourced financing but their effects have been offset by other measures. By Brian Hansen and Guanxi Zheng of Stikeman, Elliott, Hong Kong

The adoption of a new Regulation M on issue-related market activities should facilitate cross-border capital raisings. By Richard Muglia and Joel Roberto of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, London

Piero Luongo, legal counsel of Istituto Mobiliare Italiano, talks to Samantha Wigham

The House of Lords has delivered an important decision on the measure of damages for fraudulent misrepresentation. In Smith New Court Securities v Citibank, Smith New Court (SNC) was induced by a Citibank employee's fraudulent misrepresentation to buy shares in Ferranti from Citibank. It was subsequently discovered that a separate fraud involving fictitious contracts had been perpetrated on Ferranti designed to bolster its apparent profitability. On discovery of the second fraud, Ferranti's share price crashed and SNC eventually sold the shares at a heavy loss.

The Commission announced on January 22 1997 that it had cleared the acquisition by Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd (CCE) of the whole of the share capital of Amalgamated Beverages Great Britain Ltd (ABGB), and its wholy-owned subsidiary Coca-Cola and Schweppes Beverages (CCSB), from Cadbury-Schweppes (CS) and CCE's parent company The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC). CCSB was established in the UK in 1987 to bottle and sell a range of soft drinks, including Coca-Cola, Schweppes, Fanta, Sprite and Canada Dry. The purchaser, CCE, is the world's largest bottler of Coca-Cola products.

The revised provisions of the Swiss Code of Obligations (CO) regarding joint stock companies have improved the legal position of 'participants'. A 'participant' is the holder of participation certificates, which are part of the participation capital and have a par value.

On July 1 1993, Sweden enacted new competition legislation. The Swedish Competition Act broadly conforms to the rules applying in the EU under the Treaty of Rome. As for notification of acquisitions, the Competition Act provides that the acquisition of a company or business (the object) in Sweden must be notified to the Swedish competition authority, Konkurrensverket, if the aggregate turnover of the purchaser and the object exceeds Skr4 billion (US$542 million) during the preceding business year. If the purchaser belongs to a group, the aggregate turnover of the entire group will be decisive when establishing the purchaser's turnover.

As investors are no doubt aware, 1997 is shaping up to be year of major privatizations among state-owned Spanish companies. This process has already begun with the recent public offering of the remaining state-held shares of Telefónica of España.