Perpetrators working outside ambit of the law: G.L

While the grave repercussions of economic crime are fully appreciated today, approaches to com

bating this category of crime are

These groups, which develop vested interests in the receiving countries, have a vital stake in artificially creating conditions which enable them to live indefinitely overseas

incomplete and defective mainly because some significant types of offenders have escaped notice and remain entirely outside the ambit of preventive and penal measures developed by the law, Professor G.L. Peiris, Minister of External Affairs and former Distinguished Visiting Fellow of Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, said on Monday.

He was delivering a keynote address at the international symposium on economic crime at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge.

The main focus of the law and regulatory agencies continues to be on dishonest stockbrokers, auditors, hedge fund managers, bank and public offi- cials, as well as corporate personalities who are identified as the principal, if not sole, perpetrators of economic crime. While legal safeguards and procedures have been imaginatively developed, the thrust of public policy innovations has been to curtail opportunities for delinquency on the part of these persons, Prof. Peiris said.

He observed that these groups, which develop vested interests in the receiving countries, have a vital stake in artificially creating conditions which enable them to live indefinitely overseas. To achieve this end, they feel the compelling need to ‘ brand’ their country of origin negatively and, in most cases, to demonize them for partisan purposes.