The current push for a unique global identifier for each legal entity was sparked by the financial crisis in 2008 when firms and regulators had a hard time tracing the transactions among key players such as Lehman, Bear Stearns, AIG and the portfolios of mortgage-backed securities.

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"So we thought we just about got the right time to start tracing the fall-out from that, " he told BBC News Online.

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Tracing its roots back to the time of slavery in the late 1700s, the minister who started the first AME church did so after his former church demanded African Americans worship in a segregated balcony.

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