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A consortium led by Tarmac has won a contract to design and construct a general NHS hospital. The contract, which includes the operation of the hospital's non-clinical services for at least 25 years, is worth £143 million (US$232 million). The deal is the first major private finance initiative (PFI) project in the British health sector.

A consortium of firms, including Soros funds, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, Renaissance Capital, Uneximbank and Morgan Stanley Asset Management successfully bid US$1.875 billion for a 25% stake in Svyazinvest, the Russian telecoms holding company.

On June 25 1997, the US Supreme Court held in United States v O'Hagan, 117 S Ct 2199 (1997), that it is a violation of the US securities laws for corporate outsiders to trade in securities for personal profit using material, non-public information in breach of a fiduciary duty owed to the source of the information. The Court thus ratified the misappropriation theory of liability, which has been used in nearly half the insider trading cases brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in recent years.

At a weekend summit on September 13 and 14, EU finance ministers agreed that bilateral conversion rates for future members of the single currency would be announced next May. The declaration will coincide with the announcement of the founding members of economic and monetary union (Emu), and is intended to reduce the risk of currency speculation before the launch of the Euro.

What do these words mean in the context of a financial agreement? Financial lawyers are very familiar with this phrase because it is included in most loan participation agreements and syndicated loan agreements for the purpose of protecting the lead or agent bank.

New York mutual life insurer Metropolitan Life Insurance has acquired Californian-based Security First Group from London Insurance Group. The deal is worth US$377 million.

The financing of projects in China is slowly but surely being made more attractive to international investors. Edward Lam of Shearman & Sterling, London, looks at the most recent measures

Recent changes in the rules of capital tax on shares traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange created considerable turmoil. In particular, they affected foreign shareholders because companies have changed the listing of their shares to avoid tax increases.

The Singapore Mediation Centre was opened by the Singapore Academy of Law on August 16 1997 to provide a full range of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services, in particular private, non-court based mediation, as an alternative to litigation. At the launch, the Chief Justice said that "for businesses, litigation undermines their competitiveness by eating up management time and damaging business goodwill and reputation". Echoing the government's strong commitment to mediation, the Attorney-General's Chambers have recommended that future government contracts should carry a clause on the referral of disputes for mediation when appropriate.

The merger of J&A Garrigues and Andersen ALT has accelerated the process of change in Spain. Defensive reactions have already begun and nothing will be the same again. Nick Ferguson reports