From Prof Ira Sohn.

Sir, As investigators and regulators begin to sort out Société Générale, it is important, in light of the continuing (and mostly positive) innovations in banking triggered by technological change and financial globalisation, to acknowledge the prescient contributions of national bank regulators and the technocrats at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel who have been beavering away for years developing the 21st century capital adequacy requirements for banks (also known as Basel II) to protect the international financial system from financial fraud carried out at a single money-centre bank.