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It has generally been the practice of the Inland Revenue of Hong Kong to disallow payments made on the closure of a business as being non-deductible expenses for the purpose of a profits tax computation. The Hong Kong Court of Appeal recently examined this practice in the context of severance (ie redundancy) payments in The Commissioner of Inland Revenue v Cosmotron Manufacturing (Civil Appeal No. 75 of 1996).

• UK firm Linklaters & Paines has added two partners. On December 1, US-qualified Cecil Quillen was promoted from senior associate to partner in the firm's US securities team in New York. The firm has also attracted the services of Fiona Rice, a local partner in the Singapore office of rival Allen & Overy.

For the first time in 20 years, new foreign banks have been awarded full branch status in Thailand. Formerly, only 14 foreign banks were permitted to have branches in Thailand, including the Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo, Banque Indosuez, Chase Manhattan Bank, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, Sakura Bank and the Standard Chartered Bank, among others. On November 7 1996, the Finance Ministry granted full-branch licences to seven new foreign banks, selected by the Bank of Thailand on the basis of the amount of trade with each bank's country base, to upgrade their offshore banking units.

Two recent decisions by US federal courts appear to have nullified an important legal weapon in the fight against insider trading. By Jonathan Blackman of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, New York

The Danish securities market was reformed by the Danish parliament in December 1995. The Act on Securities Trade and the Act on Stockbroker Companies (together with amendments to the Banking Act and the Mortgage Credit Act) implemented the Investment Services Directive (93/22) and the Capital Adequacy Directive (93/6). The Act came into force in 1996 and the relevant executive orders under the Act have been issued, so that we also now have some impression of the first effects of the reform.

Geoffrey Yeowart of Lovell White Durrant, London, answers some of the most frequently asked legal questions relating to the forthcoming introduction of the euro

The US$150 million financing has been agreed for Termovalle I, a 200Mw gas-fired power project located near Cali, Colombia. The project was developed by a consortium consisting of KMR Power Corporation of the US and Marubeni Corporation of Japan.

Transnational Tort Litigation

Belgian firm Liedekerke Wolters Waelbroeck & Kirkpatrick, France's Siméon & Associés and Wessing Berenberg-Gossler Zimmerman Lange of Germany have entered into a cooperation agreement. The firms will establish a European Economic Interest Grouping, called the Conference of European Lawyers. This will form the basis of future cooperation in all fields of law.

Jeremy Xiao, who in August became the first Chinese citizen to qualify as a Hong Kong solicitor, will become a partner in the Hong Kong office of UK firm Herbert Smith.