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Article 1, paragraph 1 of Legislative Decree No. 239 of April 1 1996, containing provisions aimed at amending the financial treatment of interest and other capital gains deriving from securities and similar bonds, as amended by Article 12, paragraph 3 of Legislative Decree No. 461 of November 11 1997, will enter into force on July 1 1998. It provides that the 12.5% withholding tax under Article 26, paragraph 1 of the Decree of the President of the Republic No. 600 of September 29 1973 will not be applied to interest and other capital gains deriving from securities and similar bonds issued in Italy by certain entities to the extent that:

In April 1998 the government submitted a bill to parliament regarding a reform of the Finnish Companies Act to enable the conversion to the euro in private and public limited companies during the transition period between January 1 1999 and December 31 2001 and set the rules governing the move to no par value (NPV) shares in limited companies.

In a recent judgement, the Dubai Court of Cassation gave a narrow interpretation to the obligations resulting from a personal guarantee of a revolving credit facility.

The Swiss-American investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston is buying São Paulo bank Banco Garantia. New York firms Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton and Shearman & Sterling are advising on the US$675 million deal. Cleary Gottlieb is representing CSFB with a team headed by M&A and securities partners Peter Darrow and James Munsell.

After a string of national mergers at the beginning of the 1990s, German firms are shifting their focus as domestic clients look to international experience. Nick Ferguson reports from Frankfurt

Paragon has completed a £300 million (US$498 million) securitization of a portfolio of mixed consumer loans, including car loans, timeshare loans and stocking finance agreements. It is a first for Paragon, traditionally a securitizer of mortgages. The floating rate notes were issued through a special purpose vehicle, Finance for People (No. 3). JP Morgan acted as lead manager and Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York as trustee. Slaughter and May advised Paragon and Finance for People, with a team led by corporate partners Chris Smith and Andrew McLean. Also involved on the issuer's side are Tods Murray, providing Scots law advice and L'Estrange & Brett providing Irish law advice.

Brown & Wood, Blake Dawson Waldron, Allen Allen & Hemsley and Mallesons Stephen Jaques are all advising on Australia's first global bond issue which is backed by non-US mortgages. Australian bank Westpac lauched its US$1.4 billion offering on June 4 with ratings from Moodys, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch, the first time a bond issue has been rated by all three agencies.

British company Computacenter has been floated on the London stock exchange, with a global offering of 44,304,014 ordinary shares, including a Rule 144A placing in the US. The value of the transaction was £1.15 billion (US$1.84 billion) with Goldman Sachs acting as global coordinator. UK firm Linklaters & Paines represented Computacenter. Partners Matthew Middleditch and Charlie Jacobs worked on the flotation, providing advice on English and US law. UK firm Freshfields acted for Goldman Sachs with a team headed by partners Christopher Joyce (corporate) and US partner Tom Joyce (finance).

To promote Singapore as a centre for international capital fundraising, the government-appointed Corporate Finance Committee has proposed a radical new regulatory regime in a consultative paper, shifting the emphasis to a predominantly disclosure-based philosophy of regulation, similar to the US system. Key points include:

New Zealand's personal property securities law has long been criticized by lawyers and financiers as being overly complicated and lacking in certainty. The absence of an integrated registration system for charges over personal property has created confusion and the additional expense involved has proved a disincentive to the use of personal property assets as collateral for all types of financing facilities. These problems have arisen because New Zealand's personal property securities laws are set out in a number of different statutes which provide different systems of registration and different priority rules depending on the nature of the property, the type of legal entity giving the security and the form of the security itself.