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The New York office of US firm Dechert Price & Rhoads has expanded its Securitization Practice Group with three lateral hires from US competitors.

UK firm Freshfields has taken on Kent Rowey, a US qualified lawyer, as partner in the International Project Finance Group. He joins from the London office of US firm Perkins Coie.

US firm Coudert Brothers has appointed nine partners from a group formerly at the New York office of Whitman Breed Abbot & Morgan. The group concentrates on project and asset-based finance and leasing, as well as product placement and aircraft finance. George Lee leads the group, which comprises: David Bamberger, Anne Brower, Michael Kelly, Henry Moriello, David Schmidt, Joseph Schmidt, Christopher Stephens and Mary Voce. They have practised together for over 15 years. Lee says: "We selected Coudert Brothers because the firm conforms to our vision of the law firm of the future. It has great depth in providing sophisticated international and local legal representation on a global basis."

Despite press reports, US firm Baker & McKenzie has denied that it is to close its second Vietnamese office in Hanoi after failing to secure a new branch licence. The office had been operating as a representative office under the old practice rules while the application for a branch licence was processed. Most foreign firms have already received licences for their first office, with Baker & McKenzie setting up in Ho Chi Minh City.

Consistent with the aim of promoting finance market stability and the free movement of capital, the Commission has proposed a Directive (based on Article 100A of the EC Treaty) targeting 'systemic risk' in payment systems. The risk of one link in the chain of a payment system failing to meet its liabilities and passing disastrous consequences on to other participants will be reduced by the new rules on settlement finality and collateral security.

An open wholesale electricity market is expected to be fully operational by October 1 1996. This follows the successful introduction earlier this year of an interim electricity market and the split of the state-owned generator, Electricorp, into two competing generators.

Under recent changes introduced by the Spanish government, venture capital companies and funds (SCRs) are redefined as those whose main purpose is the promotion, through the acquisition of temporary shareholdings, of non-financial unlisted companies which are not more than 25% owned by companies listed on the Stock Exchange or companies considered to be 'financial entities' (qualifying companies). Under the new rules, qualifying companies are no longer required to be small or medium-sized companies or to be involved in technological or other innovative fields.

The Mémorial, the official journal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, in its edition dated May 29 1996, published the law of May 9 1996 on netting of claims in the financial sector (loi du 9 mai 1996 relative à la compensation de créances dans le secteur financier, portant modification de la loi modifiée du 5 avril 1993 relative au secteur financier).

US financial regulators have given a cautious welcome to certain uses of new technology. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) still insists that existing regulation must be followed. Anne-Louise Childs reports

John Worthy and Duncan Calow of Denton Hall, London, examine the implications of digital technologies for the regulation of banking and financial services in the UK