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In 1996, AT&T Corporation (AT&T) closed the sale of its equipment finance and leasing subsidiary, AT&T Capital Corporation (AT&T Capital), to management and Hercules Holding (Cayman) Limited, which is owned by a group of companies led by GRS Holding Company. The acquisition, which closed on October 1 1996, was followed , two weeks later, by the issue of approximately US$3.2 billion of equipment-lease-backed-notes ('the notes'), approximately US$1.2 billion of which was used to finance the acquisition.

US firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy is restaffing its Russian office. The move follows its decision to withdraw its lawyers in October 1996 after David Slade left for Allen & Overy. Since then, all the firm's Russian work has been done out of its London and New York offices. The re-entry into Russia was announced with the appointment of Holly Nielson as managing partner of the Moscow office. Nielson is expected to head an initial team of three associates, two of whom will be Russian. Milbank hopes to double the number of lawyers within a year. The firm aims to offer specialization in capital markets, banking and project finance law.

The advertising group Cordiant announced in April that it will split into three companies later this year. The demerger will create Saatchi & Saatchi, a worldwide advertising network; Bates, a marketing communications network; and a media services group, Zenith. The group will hold an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders on the demerger in October.

Media multinational The News Corporation is to acquire Dallas marketing company Heritage Media. The tax-free merger will cost News Corporation about US$754 million. News Corporation intends to keep Heritage's marketing services operations, but to sell its radio and television broadcasters.

Gallaher Group, the UK's largest manufacturer of tobacco products, which manufactures Benson and Hedges, Silk Cut, Hamlet cigars and Condor pipe tobacco, has demerged from American Brands and listed on the London Stock Exchange.

• Robert Kimmitt, who in some of his previous incarnations has been managing director of Lehman Brothers, US ambassador to Germany, under-secretary of state for political affairs and general counsel of the US Treasury Department, joined Wilmer Cutler & Pickering as a partner on May 1. He will practise in the firm's corporate and international groups, in the Washington DC office. The firm has also added Leon Greenfield, Charles Mendels and Brian Menkes as counsel.

Brazil’s unsatisfactory arbitration law has been updated to make this form of dispute resolution more attractive. By Walter Douglas Stuber and Noemia Mayumi Fukugauti of Amaro, Stuber e Advogados Associados, São Paulo

Under new guidelines issued by the Central Bank of Cyprus, the requirements for the acquisition of shares and/or share options and/or rights issues of banking institutions listed on the Cyprus Stock Exchange are as follows:

In spite of the decision in the Scandex case, the liability of directors of foreign-based financial services companies selling into the UK in contravention of FSA rules remains unclear. By David Greene of Edwin Coe, London

Exchange taxes cut