The Enron scandal had happened continents away, but its reverberations in a market already weakened by the 1997 financial crisis necessitated rapid action to plug regulatory loopholes while still allowing the rule of market forces.

A handful of computer installations escaped because they had plugged loopholes.

To avert some of these problems, the Government intends to plug loopholes in the American-style Constitution when a committee meets later this year to overhaul it.

Mr. Jarvis said it was needed to plug loopholes in the landmark voter-initiated referendum Proposition 13, which sharply curtailed property taxes in California after its passage in in 1978.

That same year, Kefauver also introduced legislation to plug loopholes in the Clayton Antitrust Act.

One overdue reform is to plug loopholes that allow many middle-class people to qualify for Medicaid's nursing home coverage by transferring assets to other family members.

Texas officials say they have also taken steps to plug loopholes that allowed participants to manipulate the system during its trial phase last summer.

The study also suggests that Congress consider amending existing legislation on arms grants and sales to plug loopholes.

During the Bush administration, there has been a weakening of our tax system through failure to plug loopholes and by denying the Internal Revenue Service necessary resources.

They are all aimed at increasing the level of ambition, bringing stricter timetables about, strengthening cooperation with third countries such as Russia and plugging loopholes in the legislation.