Hello, welcome back. It's great to have your company. This is Emlex's weekly podcast covering the top

regulatory stories of the moment with the assistance of our team of reporters around the world.

My name is James Panicki. I'm Emlex's Asia Pacific Senior Editor.

In just under 10 minutes from now, we'll be crossing to a courtroom in New York City

for the latest on the trial of Roger Ong, the former Goldman Sachs banker,

who's being caught up in the spectacular 1MDB bribery and corruption

scandal in Malaysia. It's a story of who knew what, who paid off whom, and a key witness

who impersonated his former wife when talking to the woman he was courting. Yes, it's an incredible

tale and our reporter Robert Thomason

has spent the past few weeks in court covering developments

and we'll hear from him very soon.

First up, though, cryptocurrency.

When the global community announced economic sanctions

against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine,

every parrot in the pet shop appeared to have an opinion on whether cryptocurrencies

would offer Moscow a way to sidestep the tough measures.

Well, those fears have, for now at least, turned out to be somewhat overblown.

Yet concerns that virtual currencies could be misused in this crisis

have sparked a global conversation about how to regulate the cryptocurrencies and the campaign

to introduce measures to rein in crypto exchanges appears to be gaining momentum.

Fiona Maxwell is a senior correspondent at Emlex and she covers financial

services from London and she joins us on the line now. Fiona, firstly to that key question,

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