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In September, the Singapore government issued a statement on the appointment of a committee to review Singapore's strategic legal needs in the financial sector and the conditions under which foreign law firms and foreign lawyers are permitted to operate in Singapore in the context of ensuring Singapore's competitiveness in financial services. The committee is headed by the Attorney-General and consists of a judge, a government official, senior partners of local and foreign law firms and senior officials of local and foreign banks operating in Singapore.

The privatization committee established in January 1996 has been made into a permanent committee and renamed the Privatization Committee for the Water and Electricity Sectors (PCWES). The PCWES is given a general supervisory and planning role in respect of the proposed utility privatization programme for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. This role includes the proposal of legislation and regulations for the privatization programme, as well as proposals for the reorganization of government departments and projects in the power and water sectors. The powers of the PCWES include the authority to retain staff, to appoint outside consultants, and to delegate to one or more members of the PCWES the powers necessary to implement the purposes of the PCWES. The PCWES is directed to prepare budgets for its activities and to submit them to the Crown Prince for approval.

Hanover Re, the German reinsurance company, has bought the international reinsurance operations of Skandia, the Swedish insurance and financial services group. The US$490 million deal will be effective from January 1 1998.

The German government is set to sell its remaining stake in Lufthansa, the national airline, in an offering which will raise Dm4.7 billion (US$2.65 billion). The sale amounts to 37.5% of Lufthansa's shares. The shares are held by the government and the state-owned Credit Agency for Reconstruction (KfW).

Although still often thought of as accounting firms, the big six are increasingly eager to call themselves professional service providers and offer a full range of services. Legal services are the latest part of that trend. Phillippa Cannon reports

With the enactment of the Pension Law (No. 1,732) of November 29 1996, the pension and social security systems in Bolivia have been reformed and a Pensions Superintendency created to oversee their implementation.

• London firm Simmons & Simmons has recruited two banking partners from rival City firms. Nicholas Fisher, from Dibb Lupton Alsop, joins Simmons as a partner in the firm's transactional banking practice on December 1. Kim Walking, an asset finance specialist at Theodore Goddard, is joining the banking and capital markets department. • New York firm Carter, Ledyard & Milburn has added Masahiro Yoshimura, formerly at Holme Roberts & Owen, Denver, to its Japanese Practice Group. He will join the firm as an associate.

BAT Industries is undergoing a £30 billion reconstruction involving the merger of its financial services arm with Zurich Insurance Group. BAT's tobacco business British American Tobacco plc will be listed separately in London and the merged financial services group will be held by a Swiss-registered operating company. BAT shareholders will own 45% of this company through a UK-listed holding company, Allied Zurich, and Zurich shareholders will own 55% through a Swiss-listed holding company.

If credit derivatives are found to be contracts of insurance, in many jurisdictions they will face strict regulation. David Benton, Patrick Devine and Philip Jarvis of Allen & Overy, London, explain how this interpretation can be avoided

The German government has launched a three-pronged initiative aimed at overhauling Germany’s antitrust law and making it Euro-compatible. By Wolfgang von Meibom and Jan Byok of Wessing Berenberg-Gossler Zimmermann Lange, Düsseldorf