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Report just a little late

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YESTERDAY marked the closing scene of the corporate soap opera that was the investigation into Allied Group and some 250 linked companies.

The investigation has cost time - it is more than a year now since the Financial Secretary appointed Nicholas Allen to look into the group's affairs - and it has cost a lot of money, both to taxpayers and shareholders.

And, as always, the only ones left licking the cream have been the lawyers.

It has been a running drama, with the Allied parties and their directors seeking recourse to the courts on several occasions - citing the Bill of Rights in the case of director Ronald Tse Chu-fai and, more colourfully, claiming a witch-hunt with the regulators ''out to get'' group chairman Lee Ming Tee.

With the final hurdle cleared, and the report itself all but completed, it is to be hoped the Government presses ahead with its intention to publish and broadcast its findings.

It will be the first result of a Government-appointed investigation to reach the public, and is likely to reveal a raft of undisclosed transactions of the sort that appeared in the group's latest annual report.

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