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Setting up a representative office is the first and indispensable step towards establishing a banking presence in China. Philip Gilligan and Steven Blayney of White & Case, Hong Kong, explain how

Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand's proposed merger will create an accountancy firm with worldwide revenues of US$13 billion, 135,000 employees and 8,500 partners. The move has led to talk of further mergers among the big six.

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.

Paris-based Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn is to merge with London's Harris Rosenblatt & Kramer. The new firm will practise in London under the name Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn HRK. Harris Rosenblatt should be a good fit with Salans Hertzfeld; both firms are active in financing and litigation and the UK firm's English law capacity will enhance the new firm's cross-border financing skills. "In London we focused on international finance work, but had no domestic practice," says George Macdonald, a Salans Hertzfeld partner in London. "Harris Rosenblatt's practice is complementary and its skills are transferable into the international market."

Stephen Williams, general counsel and joint secretary of Unilever, talks to Samantha Wigham

The new US tax regulations will have mixed effects for US companies engaged in project finance. Keith Martin of Chadbourne & Parke, Washington DC, looks at the good and the bad news

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

New provisions in Luxembourg on the merger of the capacities of debtor and creditor in one person (confusion) mean issuers are no longer forced to cancel their own debt after purchase. By Henri Wagner of Zeyen Beghin Feider/Loeff Claeys Verbeke, Luxembourg

Measures introduced by securities regulators in Argentina will make it easier for foreign issuers to access the country’s emerging capital market. By Rodolfo Gerardo Papa of Cárdenas, Cassagne & Asociados, Buenos Aires

Since 1984, the Statute on the Acquisition of Real Estate by Foreigners in Switzerland, commonly known as the Lex Friedrich, limits the acquisition of real estate by persons domiciled in a foreign country and by foreigners living in Switzerland. The purpose of the statute, set forth in Article 1, is "to prevent foreign control of domestic land". Foreigners were only allowed to acquire land in Switzerland under the conditions set out in the Lex Friedrich.