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The Italian securities regulator, CONSOB, has established new conduct of business rules for EU-based firms providing investment services in Italy through a branch. By Piero Salera of Pavia e Ansaldo, Rome

New Swiss legislation has opened the way for more sharing of administrative assistance information, building from the success of cooperation in the criminal field. By Claude Rouiller of Ziegler & Poncet, Geneva, former Chief Justice of Switzerland

When a railroad tank car explosion forced 1,000 residents of the New Orleans neighbourhood of Gentilly to evacuate their homes for 36 hours in 1987, the incident attracted little attention outside Louisiana. After all, there were no deaths and the residents did not suffer any serious damage or injuries. But 10 years later, after a New Orleans jury awarded US$3.4 billion in punitive damages against five companies found to be at fault, the case, In re New Orleans Train Car Leakage Fire Litigation, No. 97-CC-2547, suddenly captured the eye of the legal community and national media, earning itself the nickname 'The Great New Orleans Train Robbery'.

Decree 3119 of 1997 regulated, for taxation purposes, the amounts allowed as deductions from net income when associated with articles imported massively as contraband.

Freshfields and Baker & McKenzie advised on more privatization deals than any other firms in 1997. In what was a record year both firms advised on 117 transactions; more than double that of third-placed firm Linklaters & Paines. Last year the total value of privatizations topped US$160 billion, according to league tables published in Privatisation International. Freshfields, which heads the table because of the higher value of its transactions, benefited from a bumper year in Asia, despite the slowdown towards the end of the year.

The Singapore Law Society has issued a new code of conduct for lawyers in an attempt to provide greater transparency. The code, which came into force on June 1, formalizes the Society's existing Practice Directions, a series of guidelines for lawyers covering ethics, client-lawyer and lawyer-lawyer relationships, and conduct of business. Lawyers must now ensure clients are aware how much they will be charged, and on what basis, before work is started. They must also keep clients 'reasonably informed', making sure they see all relevant documents, and are now expected to respond promptly to telephone calls from clients and keep appointments unless they have good reasons. Lawyers found guilty of misconduct can be fined up to $5000, reprimanded, suspended or even struck off.

New York firm Donovan, Leisure has been crippled by the loss of two-thirds of its lawyers to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, the California-based firm which has been expanding aggressively in New York. The two firms had been discussing a merger, but when the talks failed Orrick hand-picked the lawyers it wanted, including 14 partners and chairman Peter Coll. "Our primary interest was the litgation department," says New York managing partner Michael Voldstadt, soon to transfer to the new London office. "But there were other parts of the firm that interested us. The fact is that law firm mergers rarely happen. There was also a conflict issue that took a long time to resolve — eventually we just drifted apart."

In Brussels, White & Case has lost a senior partner to a new Baker & McKenzie venture. Aristoteles Kaplanidis had been with Forrester Norall & Sutton for 12 years before its merger with White & Case (see IFLRev, January 1998, page 3). He is now to have executive responsibility for a new centre set up by Baker & McKenzie to provide clients with specialized EU advice. Kaplanidis stresses simply that the offer from Baker & McKenzie came at the right time for him. He says of his three months with White & Case: "There were a lot of changes going on at Forrester which, to be honest, made me think twice about leaving. There were good prospects and during my time there I worked on some very interesting things ... The merger was not the reason I moved."

• Nine partners have left London's Frere Cholmeley Bischoff following last month's merger with UK firm Eversheds. They include three Paris-based partners who will move to other firms in the city: Ann Creelman Abboud is to join US firm Watson Farley & Williams's Paris office as partner in charge of its corporate practice and will take two avocats with her; commercial and litigation specialist Jean-Philippe Berthet will move to US firm Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn and Richard Mees, a corporate and litigation specialist, will move to French firm Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn. Other moves include telecoms partner Neil Blundell going to UK firm Bird & Bird and Kirstene Baillie, a financial services specialist, moving to UK firm Field Fisher Waterhouse. Eleven other partners and 44 assistants have also left to set up a new firm, to be called Forsters (see Insides). • David Shaw, a senior corporate partner with UK firm Norton Rose, is to retire from the firm to join HSBC Holdings as adviser to the board. Shaw will chair the Investment Banking Audit Committee within the HSBC Group Executive Committee, advising on strategies and structural issues. He will take up his appointment on June 1.

The principle of banking confidentiality has traditionally also protected the fraudsters. The strong confidentiality jurisdictions have taken measures to discriminate. By Franco Taisch of Liechtensteinische Landesbank, Vaduz