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"Caspian has never been in better shape to take advantage of market conditions in the whole of its history." So said Caspian Securities' founder, Christopher Heath, speaking to Euromoney in March of this year. Four months on and Caspian, the investment bank dedicated solely to emerging markets, is no more.

The biggest money-laundering investigation ever carried out by the US authorities cast its net wide. Operation Casablanca uncovered trails in Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela and indicted some highly respectable banks. Some have now launched internal investigations into what went wrong. But how much are banks to blame when money laundering goes on under their roofs? Michelle Celarier reports.

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Was Goldman sleeping, did its client just not listen, or was Energy Group simply too clever? After a year of dithering, PacifiCorp let its UK target slip into Texan hands. The only thing that didn't fall through the cracks was the fees for Goldman and the other investment banks. Antony Currie reports.

A year ago Deutsche Morgan Grenfell was set to challenge the US global investment banks. Then Frankfurt jammed on the brakes. A bank-wide restructuring has left DMG - now just the global corporate and institutions (GCI) department of Deutsche Bank - a pale shadow of its former self. Did the Deutsche Bank board lose its nerve or does it truly believe it can have an investment-banking culture without the investment bankers who inspired it?

The tequila crisis, Asian fallout, money laundering charges - Mexican bankers walk a tortured road. Nor is there any sign of reprieve. Fobaproa, the vehicle that bailed out the country's banks, is about to undergo a public audit. The political opposition is demanding blood for what they see as the mishandling of the crisis. Bankers are again in the firing line. Brian Caplen reports.

Gardening leave for overworked bankers is perhaps one of the more agreeable spin-offs when one bank buys another. A recent beneficiary is Carol Barazzone, the former head of global equity syndicate at BZW, who quit in April four months after the sale to CSFB.

In Korea they call him the Baekmanbur-man, or the million-dollar man. Korea's first - and perhaps only - million dollar analyst surprised everyone last month when he decided to return to his old firm, four years after he'd left it.

Experienced Japan watchers are getting ever gloomier about the country's prospects. They cannot see any way out of the present gridlock. The banks, all their time and resources focused on non-performing assets, have reduced new lending so dramatically that the real economy is grinding to a halt. The rate of corporate bankruptcy is increasing and each new Tankan survey is more despairing than the last. Lack of liquidity is forcing good as well as bad out of business, creating more problems for the banks and forcing them to cut lending further.

Is this the biggest show in town?

Clearing equity trades in Moscow has never been as quick and easy a business as in other emerging European equity markets such as in Poland or Hungary. Failure of trades - when purchased shares are not delivered or sold shares are delivered but no cash is received - has plagued the Russian equity market for some time.

Sir,