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Tax specialists are the best paid in-house counsel, according to a survey conducted jointly by US legal consulting firm Altman Weil Pensa and the American Corporate Counsel Association. The Law Department Compensation Benchmarking Survey examines the finances of US company legal departments, and reveals that the top earning specialities are tax, and mergers and acquisitions, for which an average in-house counsel receives about US$120,000. Almost half chief legal officers earned between US$200,000 and US$350,000, while nearly 10% earned more than US$500,000. But the departments continued to rely heavily on external firms, with each, on average, using about 48 firms in 1996. This cost departments an average of US$376,162 per lawyer. The highest paid external lawyers were specialists in personal injury defence, earning US$108,151, followed by general litigation lawyers, who received US$100,938. Mergers and acquisitions specialists and intellectual property lawyers earned US$88,985 and US$85,283 respectively.

Mark Harding, general counsel of Union Bank of Switzerland, London, talks to Samantha Wigham

The American chapter of litigation involving the financially distressed Lloyd's of London has been active. American Names who have opted not to participate in the settlement contained in the Lloyd's Reconstruction and Renewal Plan recently sued Lloyd's for fraudulent misrepresentation in two cases filed in the federal court in New York: Stamm v Lloyd's and Grace v Lloyd's.

The commoditization of energy and the development of a European energy market is well under way — but will remain incomplete while there is no standardized master contract available. By Mark Haedicke of Enron Capital & Trade Resources Corporation, Houston

The Ontario Securities Commission is attempting to dispel the uncertainties surrounding the status of over-the-counter derivatives trades. By Philip Henderson and Ron Schlumpf of Stikeman, Elliott, London and Toronto

Austria's largest bank, Bank Austria, outbid three rivals to acquire a 70% stake in Creditanstalt, the country's second biggest bank. The Austrian government has been trying to privatize the stake for six years. The bank paid Sch17.2 billion (US$1.55 billion) for the stake. Bank Austria is now making a partial cash offer of a minimum Sch772 per share to Creditanstalt's minority shareholders and giving them the opportunity to convert the rest of their shares into Bank Austria equity.

Dutch financial services company Aegon is buying the insurance operations of Providian Corporation in a US$2.62 billion stock transaction. It is the largest acquisition in the life insurance industry.

Bank Security and Other Credit Enhancement Methods

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange has been looking at corporate governance and its relation to shareholder power and the functioning of the market. Anti-takeover devices are also in question. By Martin Brink of Derks . Star Busmann . Hanotiau, Utrecht

UK firm Freshfields has lost out to rival Linklaters & Paines in a ranking of firms advising on public takeovers in the UK. The table, published by Acquisitions Monthly, places Freshfields third in its top 20 survey. In 1995 Freshfields advised on 31 deals worth a total of £32.2 billion (US$51 billion), while in 1996, it advised on 17 deals amounting to only £9.5 billion. However, the table reveals that in 1996 both the value and number of deals decreased significantly overall. The results put Linklaters & Paines top with £19 billion-worth of deals. Slaughter and May remained in second place, with deals worth £16.3 billion, although it had advised in six more deals than Linklaters. Ashurst Morris Crisp leapt from 13th place to fourth, advising on 15 deals worth nearly US$9 billion. Other big changes in the rankings came from Macfarlanes, which jumped from 14th place to seventh and Simmons & Simmons which slipped four places.