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The company law reform package which came into force on July 1 1994 introduced a substantially simpler amalgamation procedure into New Zealand law. This has resulted in an increased number of corporate restructurings. The statutory procedure enables one or more companies to be absorbed into another existing company, or two or more companies to be joined so as to form a new company.

• Robert Kimmitt, who in some of his previous incarnations has been managing director of Lehman Brothers, US ambassador to Germany, under-secretary of state for political affairs and general counsel of the US Treasury Department, joined Wilmer Cutler & Pickering as a partner on May 1. He will practise in the firm's corporate and international groups, in the Washington DC office. The firm has also added Leon Greenfield, Charles Mendels and Brian Menkes as counsel.

The flood of US firms entering or expanding in the London market shows no sign of stopping. Atlanta-based Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP opened an office in June. New York's Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft will open its office at the start of September. Cadwalader is being particularly aggressive in its strategy. Mitchell Sonkin, a member of the firm's management committee, says the firm is aiming to open with 15 or more lawyers , and hopes to expand that to more than 25 within a year. All but a few of them will be UK-qualified, he predicts. The firm's eventual goal is to have an office of between 50 and 75 lawyers, and Sonkin expects that to be achieved within three to four years.

The government of Panama has sold a 49% stake in the country's national telephone company, Intel, in central America's first telecoms privatization. UK telecoms company Cable & Wireless paid US$632 million in cash for the stake, beating rival bidder GTE Corporation of Stamford.

Media multinational The News Corporation is to acquire Dallas marketing company Heritage Media. The tax-free merger will cost News Corporation about US$754 million. News Corporation intends to keep Heritage's marketing services operations, but to sell its radio and television broadcasters.

Irish firm Matheson Ormsby Prentice has formally opened its first US office in Palo Alto, California. The office opened quietly at the start of 1997 and so far, says head of financial services David McGeogh, Dublin, the response has been promising: "As no other Irish firms have an office on the west coast, and as our focus is US inward investment into Ireland, we are not competing directly with anyone." The firm decided on Palo Alto, he says, for a number of reasons: the number of the firm's existing clients on the US west coast; the abundance of US electronics and computer companies in the region; and the relatively low set-up costs. The office is permanently staffed by senior associate Deirdre Dunne and another corporate associate, and will be supported by McGeogh and tax partner Liam Quirke from Dublin, who between them will spend around 10 weeks a year in the US. McGeogh says: "We are starting small, but within two to three months we will have a much better idea of how we need to expand."

The debt crisis of the 1980s may be over, but the litigation arising from the various sovereign defaults is not. The holding of a recent case, Pravin Banker Associates v Banco Popular Del Peru, 1997 WL 134390 (2nd Cir NY), may have serious repercussions for rescheduling sovereign debt.

The Financial System Statute lays down that leasing services can only be offered by certain companies known as Commercial Financing Companies (CFCs). CFCs require prior authorization from the Banking Superintendency, and are subject to a special regime. CFCs must be organized as stock companies. They cannot be branches of foreign companies, but they may be subsidiaries. CFCs may effect active credit transactions up to the equivalent of 35% of total assets.

• US firm Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts has made Christine Pallares partner. Pallares, who specializes in corporate and capital markets, is based in New York.

Argentine Law 24597 (the Registration Law), published in the Official Gazette on November 22 1995, established that all securities issued by Argentine private sector issuers should be converted to non-endorsable registered form and that no bearer securities should be issued by Argentine private issuers thereafter.