The news, therefore, did little to change previous market expectations of Italy joining EMU.However, even if Italy appears to be winning the “binary game” and bringing its deficit down, analysts pointed out that the uncertainty is not over for the markets.”The Italian mini budget actually heightens the conundrum: what will Europe do if Italian and German borrowing figures come in close together?”, asked Mr Brookes. German hostility to a single currency which includes Italy in the first wave is well known.The next important clues to EMU’s future on the economic front won’t emerge for several weeks, when the first data about German economic performance this year will be released. At that stage it will be clearer whether Germany itself can meet the Maastricht criteria without further action.But for political news we may not have to wait so long. Next weekend Europe’s finance ministers and central bankers meet to discuss monetary union at an informal meeting of Ecofin, a committee of the European Union. This should provide plenty of opportunity for bigger fish than Mr Dini to make waves if they want to.. The US tobacco industry has mounted an 11th-hour legal attempt to prevent Liggett Group handing over key internal documents at the centre of the cigarette company’s historic deal with anti-smoking groups.

It emerged yesterday that lawyers acting for the largest tobacco groups have asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to overturn an order issued in a lower court which would have allowed plaintiffs in a $650m passive smoking case to see 11 documents from Liggett which were due to be released late yesterday.
The move came as a judge in Florida ordered Liggett, maker of Chesterfield cigarettes, to deliver the documents to assist its review of a case involving hundreds of thousands of smokers in the state.The documents are among the records that Liggett agreed to turn over last week in a settlement with 22 states that are suing the tobacco industry to recoup an estimated $30bn in Medicaid funds spent treating people for smoking-related illnesses.On Wednesday, a county circuit judge said the papers could be handed over to lawyers acting for the family of Burl Butler, a Mississippi barber who died of cancer in 1994. It is alleged Mr Butler, who did not smoke himself, died from inhaling his customers’ smoke over 30 years.The plaintiffs claim the cigarette makers knew of the dangers of smoking, but kept the information hidden.. John Hodson, chief executive of Singer & Friedlander, stands guard over that rarest of endangered species – an independent, British risk- taking merchant bank. This week it showed off its rude good health by announcing a 57 per cent leap in 1996 profits to pounds 54.80m. Even stripping out the substantial one-off gain from the sale of Singer’s stake in People’s Phone, profits still rose 22 per cent, an increase that would have been the envy of Barclays de Zoete Wedd, the UK’s premier contender in the investment banking stakes.

So how does it do it?
What is most striking about the bank is the handful of interesting business personalities it has attracted. Four years ago, Singers provided Terry Smith, a former analyst with UBS, the Swiss-owned investment bank, with a refuge after he outraged his then employer with a now notorious expose of how companies allegedly cook their books, Accounting for Growth.Nigel Wray’s name has been even more closely associated with the group in recent years. The bank owes its current stock market quotation to the Midas-touched Mr Wray – still a non-executive director – after he merged certain property interests with Singer & Friedlander just ahead of the stock market crash in 1987.One of the prime movers behind the Burford property group, he is now turning his attention to sport through involvement in the Saracens rugby club and a current bid to take over Nottingham Forest.And once again it is Singer which appears to be providing the focus for Mr Wray’s interests. In January, the bank launched a collective fund to invest in football clubs.This venture has proved a magnet to yet another personality, Alan Hansen, the former Liverpool star and soccer commentator, who is acting as adviser to the fund.As Mr Hodson explains, this is the key to Singer’s identity: “We are a collection of people who bring things to the business.