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In 1991, the House of Lords held that entering into interest rate swaps was outside the statutory powers of local authorities (Hazell v Hammersmith & Fulham). When banks claimed for restitution of sums paid to local authorities under void swaps, their claims were hindered by the 200 year old principle of law that money paid under a mistake of law is not recoverable. In Kleinwort Benson v Lincoln City Council, the House of Lords has now ruled that payments made under a mistake of law are recoverable. The law lords, by a 3-2 majority, held that:

Freshfields of the UK and Germany's Deringer Tessin Herrmann & Sedemund have signed an agreement to associate formally with 40-lawyer Austrian firm Wolf Theiss & Partners. The firms have agreed to share resources and refer clients where necessary, as well as to exchange lawyers and form cross-firm practice groups. Partner Richard Wolf of Wolf Theiss explains: "We were in talks with Deringer when they were also talking to Freshfields, so we were able to seize the opportunity of doing something with both of them."

Simon Gleeson, head of Richards Butler's financial services unit, is joining Allen & Overy on November 23. He will assist the firm in the development of its financial services group, providing advice on regulatory matters. The firm plans to create a group providing advice on UK regulations in financial services. The group will be built on the back of its banking practice, and, says Allen & Overy, will take a proactive role in the market. Gleeson says: "Regulatory advisers can be swamped with referral work by other parts of the firm. We want to go out in the market and build up direct relations with clients, providing them with a service which they don't get from the corporate guy."

Barbara Galli talks to Olivér Glatz, General Counsel of the National Bank of Hungary

The negotiations between Denton Hall, Richards Butler and Theodore Goddard over a possible three-way merger have been called off. The merger would have created the seventh largest law firm based in the UK, according to statistics gathered for the recently published 1999 edition of the International Financial Law Review 1000 directory. While the firms found they had a very good fit in London, that situation was not reflected overseas. Although the press release mentions "difficulties in merging the Hong Kong offices of Denton Hall and Richards Butler", sources close to the talks indicate that it proved impossible to reconcile the Asian aims of Denton Hall with the independence insisted on by the Hong Kong office of Richards Butler.

The slump in issuance since October 1997 has affected all firms with Asian equities practices with the biggest offerings bringing more comfort to US rather than UK firms. Nick Ferguson reports

Securitization is rapidly becoming a common financing technique in Italy with new regulations modelled on foreign securitization rules. By Raffaele Rizzi of Baker & McKenzie, London

US firms suffered from the effects of the Asian crisis on Latin America, but benefited from a thriving market at home, while Canadian firms enjoyed an increasing involvement in global equity offerings. Barbara Galli reports

Richard Parolai and Michael Elland-Goldsmith of Clifford Chance, Paris, advisers to CSFB

Yusaku Ono of Hamada & Matsumoto, Tokyo discusses the new tax laws for Japanese issues and the IPMA operating manual which aims to ease market compliance