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The decision of the UK High Court which threw the use of Chinese walls in professional firms into doubt has been overturned. The Court of Appeal has removed the injunction from accountant KPMG which barred it from acting for the Brunei Investment Agency on an investigation into the Agency's former activities. Woolf MR, giving the judgment of the court, said that the approach to such a case should be: to determine the existence of confidential information which might harm a former client; to determine whether there was a risk of that information being disclosed; and whether the former fiduciary relationship was so strong that the court should intervene with an injunction. These issues were to be determined on the facts of each case.

• US law firm White & Case has announced the appointement of five new partners. Michael Bühler, who specializes in international commercial arbitration and international business transactions, has been named partner at the firm's Paris office. International tax partner Barrye Wall has joined the Los Angeles office. Mark Powell, a specialist in European competition and trade law, has been named a partner at the Brussels office. Partner James McGuire has been hired by the New York office as a specialist in white collar crime, complex civil litigation and corporate internal investigations. John Sarchio has joined the New York office as partner. He is head of the firm's Insurance Industry Practice Group. • Paul Gonson, attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has announced that he will retire at the end of the year. Mr Gonson became SECs counsel in 1979 and has argued more than 100 appellate cases on behalf of the Commission, including cases before the Supreme Court and all US Courts of Appeal. He will continue to act as part-time consultant to the Commission following his retirement.

Allen & Overy is gaining an office in Bangkok as a result of its merger with local firm MPS & Associates. The firm already has regional offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore & Tokyo. MPS & Associates is a 18 lawyer corporate firm, working with international as well as domestic clients. It is well regarded for its banking and capital markets work. The three existing partners of MPS & Associates – Pises Sethsathira, Simon Makinson and Surapon Satimanont – will become partners in Allen & Overy on November 1.

Stephen Mulrenan reports from Tokyo where the changes to the permitted activities for registered lawyers have left foreign lawyers frustrated

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.

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

Two recent cases have considered the scope of two types of provision commonly found in loan agreements, bond and other debt instruments.