Ban CU Secrecy, Keep TLA's!

[jya@pipeline.com (John Young)]

   FiTi, 10 September 1996. 
 
 
   Call to abolish banking secrecy 
 
   By William Lewis in Cambridge 
 
 
   The UK government should take a lead and abolish banking 
   secrecy in its dependent territory offshore centres, a 
   former legal adviser to MI5 and MI6, the British 
   intelligence agencies, said yesterday. 
 
   Mr David Bickford, the first British intelligence lawyer 
   to speak publicly in the UK, said at a conference in 
   Cambridge, 50 miles north-east of London, that there 
   "appears to be no justification at all for offshore bank 
   secrecy other than to protect the criminal". 
 
   He said "offshore bank secrecy can and must be abolished" 
   and "the UK should be the first to abolish this secrecy 
   given their control of their dependent territory offshore 
   centres". 
 
   Mr Bickford, who now runs an international legal 
   consultancy, said "endemic corruption" is caused by 
   offshore secrecy, and it is "difficult to see why it is 
   tolerated by any other than those with an unlawful 
   disposition". 
 
   He said allowing countries to maintain offshore banking 
   secrecy is "a classic example of the corruptive influence 
   of organised crime". 
 
   Mr Bickford added that the "justification is put forward 
   at all is an example of the overwhelming subversive 
   corruptive influence of organised crime which has managed 
   to magic a seemingly acceptable position out of the sheer 
   weight of its financial proceeds from narcotics, fraud, 
   extortion and other criminal enterprise". 
 
   Mr Raymond Kendall, secretary general of Interpol told 
   the 14th International Symposium on Economic Crime that 
   governments should commit more resources and step up 
   co-operation to tackle the growing problem of 
   international corruption. 
 
   [End]