The Bingham Report was produced in only a year and contains all that is worth saying about the supervision of BCCI. It was not comfortable reading for the Bank, but the Bank accepted and acted on its findings. The subsequent legal proceedings over thirteen years have benefited only one group at the expense, in the end, largely of the creditors. As Mr Justice Lightman argued in his 2003 Edward Bramley Memorial Lecture, the adversarial system imposes huge costs on litigants and defendants alike. As he put it, “to the great majority of the public the perception (if not the reality) is that the legal system is a profitable monopoly of the lawyers”. BCCI showed that perception was indeed reality. A system that is powerless to prevent a case so hopelessly misconceived continuing for thirteen years requires examination. I very much hope that the Government will look carefully at this case, learn the lessons, and take steps to ensure that such an outcome can never occur again. Finally, who managed to obtain the correct answers to the two questions I gave you at the beginning? Chancellor, you can see that mental arithmetic in the City is not what it was. In fact the answer to the first question is 3/100 or 3%, and to the second question is £ 13s. 9d. - before tax.
The European Union flag is not classified as a national Flag under the current regulations. … the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is proposing to change the Regulations”. Until then, however, consent is required. The letter continued: “I have been advised that consent usually takes six to eight weeks to obtain and costs £ You need to send the completed advertisement consent form plus fee with a covering letter explaining when and where you wish to fly the flag providing details of the size of the flag and photos of the flagpole in relation to the building.” Chancellor, you can be sure that the Bank of England will abide by the rules - although we may not fly many flags, both literally and metaphorically. The Bank now has a very clear focus on maintaining monetary and financial stability - the former defined by the inflation target and the latter by the revised Memorandum of Understanding between Bank, FSA and Treasury published in March. The great strength of the 1997 reforms to the monetary policy process is that they establish clear rules of the game for making decisions on interest rates. The Monetary Policy Committee sets interest rates each month to meet the inflation target. But how do we implement those decisions in the market? Our objective is to ensure that the policy rate set at the monthly meetings of the MPC is the rate in the money markets until the following meeting.