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The Royal Bank of Scotland has hired Ben Gulliver, a credit trader at Caxton Europe, and Karthik Paramasivan, covered bonds trader at Goldman Sachs in London, as credit flow traders in London.

Chi-Ming Peng, ceo of WeatherRisk Explore, who consulted on Taiwan's first weather-linked contract, credited the recent movie blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, in which sudden global warming wreaks havoc on the Northern Hemisphere, in helping clients understand the need for weather risk management.

Société Générale has added two New York-based equity derivatives salesmen to increase the volume of flow products it offers to hedge funds.

Credit-default swap spreads on the telecommunications carrier Qwest Capital Funding tightened last week after Standard & Poor's upgraded Qwuest to BB minus from single B minus.

A possible restructuring of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts debt will likely hit restructuring triggers in credit-default swaps this year.

UBS has hired Makram Fares, director in equity derivative sales to hedge funds at Lehman Brothers in London, for a similar role.

--Stephen Robbins, an accounting and tax specialist in the global risk solutions group at BNP Paribas in London, commenting on the impact of new tax treatment if the U.K. government does not amend its finance act.

U.K. corporates will have to pay tax on mark-to-market gains on derivatives hedges--which could result in volumes plunging--if the government does not amend its finance bill, warn bankers.

ABN AMRO has structured a deposit linking the interest of the account to the amount of sunshine in the Netherlands this summer.

Barclays Capital has nabbed most of Credit Suisse First Boston's Scandinavian fixed income sales team.

The biggest difference between entering a portfolio of single-name CDS contracts and entering a CDS index contract is the protection premium.

Karim Zahmoul, managing director in emerging market derivatives at Deutsche Bank in New York, has left the firm.