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UK firm Linklaters & Paines has been hired by British Petroleum for its US$50 billion agreed takeover of Amoco in the US. The oil company merger is the world's largest industrial merger and lawyer's fees are likely to be considerable. The resulting company, BP Amoco plc, will have a market capitalization of US$110 billion with 100,000 employees worldwide. It will be one of the three biggest oil companies in the world along with Royal Dutch/Shell and Exxon. The equity split will be 60% to BP shareholders and 40% to Amoco shareholders. Advising Amoco on the transaction in the US are Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz partners Andrew Brownstein and Martin Lipton. UK counsel to Amoco is Freshfields, with a team including senior partner Anthony Salz, corporate partners William Lawes and Neil Radford, EU law partners Rachel Brandenburger and John Davies, and tax partners Francis Sandison and Sarah Falk.

New regulations on netting agreements governing financial transactions related to derivative instruments have been passed as an additional provision to a law customarily enacted at the same time as the approval of the budget for the following year. That law, which came into force on January 1 1998, added a new section to a 1994 law on the Second Banking Directive.

The recent merger of the German Futures Exchange DTB (Deutsche Terminbörse) and the Swiss Futures Exchange SOFFEX (Swiss Options and Financial Futures Exchange) created EUREX (European Exchange) as a single platform for pan-European trading and clearing of standardized futures and options under harmonized rules. EUREX is a fully electronic exchange based in Frankfurt and Zurich, with access points in Amsterdam, Chicago, London and Paris (and future access points in Helsinki, Madrid and New York).

• US firm Brown & Wood has appointed Michael Durrer as a partner in its London office. Durrer returns to the firm after three years with Atlanta-based Kilpatrick Stockton. He joins the securitization practice group. • Mark Wierzbowski, a partner of the Warsaw office of Weil Gotshal & Manges, has been made President of the Supervisory Board of the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Gary Spiess, general counsel at BankBoston, Boston, talks to Shane Sorenson

A group of 15 lawyers who left Swedish law firm Lagerlöf & Leman because of its association with UK firm Linklaters & Paines are now the country's highest billing lawyers. Partners at Hammarskiöld & Co in Stockholm brought in on average Skr 9.6 million (US$1.17 million) per partner, almost twice that of the partners at their previous firm, according to figures published in the Swedish business newspaper Affärs Världen. In July, Lagerlöf & Leman, along with three other members of the Alliance, entered into an association with Linklaters. The new grouping, Linklaters & Alliance, includes Oppenhoff & Rädler in Germany, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek in the Netherlands and De Bandt van Hecke & Lagae in Belgium.

The Puerto Rico Telephone Authority agreed to sell the majority of its shares in the Puerto Rico Telephone Company to a group headed by a subsidiary of GTE Corporation. At closing, PRTA will receive US$1.875 billion — US$375 million as consideration for the shares and US$1.5 billion as dividend. The dividend will be paid through a loan, to be arranged GTE, from a syndicate of banks to PRTC.

In the second of his series considering possible changes to bond documentation to ease sovereign debt problems, Lee C Buchheit of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, New York, considers the majority action clause

US firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle has opened an office in Milan. A joint venture with Italian firm Studio Legale Gilioli, the office is headed by partner Eric Gilioli and takes the name Curtis, Mallet-Prevost & Gilioli. Curtis Mallet-Prevost sees Italy as an important addition to its European network of offices in Frankfurt, London and Paris. Managing partner of the firm George Kahale explains: "There is a lot of international work, both inbound and outbound, between Italy and the US. Our firm is also very active in Latin America and the Middle East and we have existing business in Milan representing a number of multinationals doing business in those areas." The firm will aim to build on existing strengths including corporate M&A work, joint ventures and project finance.

The Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE) has embarked on its most ambitious project yet, the creation of an electronic exchange. With a view to improving its connectivity, speeding up securities transactions and cutting costs, the CSE has signed a contract with an Australian computer firm to develop and install the required equipment and software. Full computerization of trading as well as back office procedures, ie clearing and settlement, is scheduled to be operational by mid-1999. The customization and testing of the electronic dealing system is under way. The same system architecture is already used by the Geneva, Moscow and Oslo stock exchanges. Even though the exchange is to go on-line, the trading floor will continue to exist for some time. Remote-terminal-based trading will follow at a later stage. The provision of central clearing facilities for stock exchange transactions under the electronic system was put out to tender and won by a major Cypriot banking institution.