Acknowledgements

Research for this book has relied principally upon court cases that have resulted in convictions, and upon public enquiries into financial scandals. The increasing willingness of governments, financial regulators and the courts on both sides of the Atlantic to make these materials publicly accessible via the internet has greatly increased the transparency of these murky affairs. In particular, C-SPAN (the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network in the US) and the UK’s Parliament TV now provide thousands of hours of archived witness testimony and cross-examination via the internet that enable anyone to study these complex issues at first hand – I applaud the democratic impulse behind this development, which is a genuine boon to the private investor. Christopher Cudmore, Editor in Chief of Professional Publishing at Pearson Education, was untiring in his encouragement, and retained his faith in the book even when it seemed that it would never be finished; I am extremely grateful to him for his tolerance, advice and unwavering support.