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Austria's largest bank, Bank Austria, outbid three rivals to acquire a 70% stake in Creditanstalt, the country's second biggest bank. The Austrian government has been trying to privatize the stake for six years. The bank paid Sch17.2 billion (US$1.55 billion) for the stake. Bank Austria is now making a partial cash offer of a minimum Sch772 per share to Creditanstalt's minority shareholders and giving them the opportunity to convert the rest of their shares into Bank Austria equity.

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange has been looking at corporate governance and its relation to shareholder power and the functioning of the market. Anti-takeover devices are also in question. By Martin Brink of Derks . Star Busmann . Hanotiau, Utrecht

Bank Security and Other Credit Enhancement Methods

Milan firm Traverso & Associati has opened an office in Rome. Salvatore Italia becomes managing partner of the office, which will specialize in company law. The firm has appointed Tito Ballarino, a university professor of international and EU law, as counsel. Mariapia Martino also joins the office from Balducci-Caranno, where she specialized in civil and criminal law.

Tax specialists are the best paid in-house counsel, according to a survey conducted jointly by US legal consulting firm Altman Weil Pensa and the American Corporate Counsel Association. The Law Department Compensation Benchmarking Survey examines the finances of US company legal departments, and reveals that the top earning specialities are tax, and mergers and acquisitions, for which an average in-house counsel receives about US$120,000. Almost half chief legal officers earned between US$200,000 and US$350,000, while nearly 10% earned more than US$500,000. But the departments continued to rely heavily on external firms, with each, on average, using about 48 firms in 1996. This cost departments an average of US$376,162 per lawyer. The highest paid external lawyers were specialists in personal injury defence, earning US$108,151, followed by general litigation lawyers, who received US$100,938. Mergers and acquisitions specialists and intellectual property lawyers earned US$88,985 and US$85,283 respectively.

The Polish government will decide the fate of foreign lawyers in a series of votes over the next few weeks. One proposal would restrict foreign law firms' ability to hire domestic lawyers and could require all foreign offices to be operated by Polish firms. But foreign firms should not worry yet, according to Stephen Denyer, partner at Allen & Overy in Warsaw and leader of a group formed by foreign lawyers in Poland. "Although the voting is soon, the government proposed this three-and-a-half years ago," he explains. "The legal regime here will definitely change. It will probably be necessary to have fully-qualified lawyers, and the Polish system will change. But the rules might just restrict foreign firms, rather than forcing foreign lawyers not to practise here."

The Turkish government has completed a US$630 million project financing of a power plant. The Marmara Ereglisi plant will supply power to utility Turkiye Elektrik Uretim ve Ticaret, under a 20-year agreement. The state gas company will supply natural gas. Financing is sponsored by a consortium of Enron Corporation and Wing International, the UK's Midlands Electricity, and Turkey's GAMA Endustri. Eximbank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the Republic of Turkey are arranging the financing with a consortium of international commercial banks. Bankers Trust Company, ABNAmro and Bayerische Landesbank Girozentrale were lead lenders for the project.

UK firm Lovell White Durrant has expanded its Chicago practice with the appointment of six lawyers over the last three months. Anne Fortney is the latest to join the niche reinsurance practice, becoming of counsel. She leaves the Washington DC office of Carlsmith Ball Wichman Case & Ichiki, where she was a partner. "Anne is clearly quite a catch," says a Lovell spokesperson. Neal Moglin has also joined the firm as of counsel from rival Kaplan & Begy. Linda Dublow joins from Streich Lang in Chicago; James Chareq from Stuart & Branigin in Indiana; Markus Heyder from Latham & Watkins in Chicago; and Philip Bock from Chicago firm Lord, Bissel & Brook.

On January 1, the government of Victoria in Australia changed its regulations on law firms. The government felt public confidence was being undermined, for three reasons: the lack of independent regulation, limited information on billing and the restrictive nature of professional practices.

UK firm Herbert Smith leads UK firms in Private Finance Initiative (PFI) transactions with 38 deals, according to a new league table published by PFI Report. The table lists Linklaters & Paines second with 35. Dibb Lupton Alsop, in third place, leads Freshfields by seven deals. Allen & Overy comes fifth, with 21 deals.