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Japan introduced a new piece of legislation in 1992, designed to reform the financial system, the main feature of which was to ease the strict separation imposed on banks and securities companies under Article 65 of the Securities and Exchange Law of 1948 (SEL). The Japanese Government identified as specific problems that would have to be faced in allowing banks to enter into securities business and securities companies in turn to enter into banking, sound management, conflicts of interest and fair competition. However, the fierce opposition from the securities industry to the banks being permitted to enter their lucrative business had more to do with loss of business than issues of investor protection.

At a recent meeting of government officials in Trinidad to discuss regional security and in particular the threat of regional and, indeed, international dcstabilisation presented by the illicit drug trade, considerable attention was focused on the role of offshore financial centres in facilitating the financial activities of organised crime groups. Of course, over the years offshore financial centres, typically on small tropical islands in the Caribbean and more recently the Pacific, have attracted a certain amount of criticism. As governments have increasingly recognised the practical importance of taking the profit out of serious crime, thus attacking both the motivation for much criminal activity and undermining liquidity within criminal financial structures, attention has inevitably been focused on the attempts of those involved in protecting the profits of crime to launder it. Ironically when the Criminal Justice Act 1988 provided the courts with powers to deprive convicted criminals of the proceeds of profitable criminal activity in Britain, this gave to organised criminals a clear incentive to launder their ill‐gotten gains. It must be remembered that the laundering of money is an expensive and potentially high risk activity. Therefore, criminals would not normally bother to go to the expense and trouble of laundering the proceeds of their illicit activities unless there was a pressing reason to do so. The prospect of confiscation on conviction is a real risk and, thus, a compelling justification for attempting to obscure the source of such funds. Of course, the 1988 Act did not contain provisions outlawing money laundering, which was unfortunate given the incentive that it gave to the practice.

There are few better examples of public policy being used to cut through what might to many seem to be sound legal reasoning than in the recent decision of the House of Lords in Re Supply of Ready‐mixed Concrete (No. 2), Director General of Fair Trading v Pioneer Concrete (UK) and Another. The case represents a milestone or perhaps more appropriately the end of the road, for a scries of cases involving actions brought by the Director of Fair Trading against a number of companies and individuals for allegedly unlawful restrictive agreements in relation to the supply of ready‐mixed cement. In the present case the two respondent companies were made subject to orders by the Restrictive Practices Court in March 1978 and March 1979 restraining them from, inter alia, giving effect to or enforcing agreements with other parties, relating to the supply of ready‐mixed cement in contravention of s. 35(1) of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1976. This provision among other things, renders unlawful certain agreements restricting competition between two or more peresons carrying on business in the production or supply of goods, unless such agreements are registered.

On announcing the debacle of Barings, the Bank of England emphasised that the circumstances were ‘unique to Barings’ in an attempt to calm its effect on the rest of the financial community. But those in charge of banking and securities operations around the world must know that what has happened to Barings is by no means without precedent. Only last year the downfall of Kidder Peabody, an American securities firm, was caused by the head of its government bond trading who had been creating fictitious trading profits. And Japan is no exception. Its banking sector has recently suffered a series of collapses which have undermined confidence in the financial system. Events that have been of particular concern to the public in Japan are failures of two credit associations, Tokyo Kyowa and Anzen.

The Second African Conference on Economic Crime took place in Johannesburg from 17th to 19th July, 1996. The Conference was organised under the auspices of the Centre for International Documentation on Organised Crime (CIDOEC) by the Police Science Sub‐department of the University of South Africa, the Centre for Business Law of the University of the Orange Free State, the Office for Serious Economic Offences of the Department of Justice of the Republic of South Africa, the Commercial Crime Branch of the South African Police Service and Business Against Crime.