association may be liable for office's securities fraud based on agency doctrine). Most associations now expressly note their status on web sites, e-mails and letterhead in order to prevent future arguments based on agency. The Swiss Verein is similar to the European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG), but differs in that EEIG member firms share their liabilities while Verein member firms maintain separate liabilities. Law firms Baker & McKenzie was the first major law firm to become a Swiss verein, in 2004. Since 2009, Swiss vereins have been used in several mergers of large multinational law firms, as they allow regional profit pools and their related tax, accounting and partner compensation systems to remain separate while allowing strategy, branding, information technology and other core functions to be shared between the constituent partnerships. The main advantage of the verein structure is that profits can be shared between constituent partnerships, incentivizing partners to share clients and work between the member partnerships. Most law firms as vereins overcome cost sharing problem in return for work referrals, which allows for the indirect sharing of profits. This issue is not unique to vereins, as some firms structured as a single partnership maintain multiple profit centers so as to limit profit sharing within the partnership. In many cases, this works like a corporate structure, where the Swiss verein is the holding company and the member firms are the subsidiaries, making the centralization, profit and fund management more efficient. Vereins are usually consolidated as single firms in law firm revenue and headcount rankings such as The American Lawyer's "AmLaw 100," while international referral networks such as Lex Mundi and informal "best friends" alliances are usually not consolidated for this purpose. However, some law firm vereins such as DLA Piper have minimal financial integration and primarily serve as referral relationships. The cost sharing between verein members often has the economic effect of splitting fees between member firms in cases where work is referred between them, although revenue sharing between such member firms is often prohibited (this restriction being one of the major considerations underlying the verein structure). The details of cost sharing are not always clearly disclosed to clients and may result in higher fees than what would be charged outside of the verein relationship. Vereins can also give rise to conflicts of interest. For example, the US arm of Dentons advised a plaintiff in suing Gap Inc., a