Barings focus turns to former bank chiefs

NO one, apart from the family of convicted derivatives trader Nick Leeson, will have been following his trial as closely as some of his former senior executives at Barings Bank.

They will now be waiting tensely to see if Leeson's lengthy sessions with Singapore's Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) have yielded sufficient new information for them to face legal action, or whether they will continue to be regarded merely as uneducated in the complex ways of derivatives markets by allowing themselves to be fooled by a cocky young trader.

How much Leeson will continue to co-operate with the Singapore authorities could be crucial. When he was led away to start his 61/2-year sentence, he clearly was shaken by the length of the jail term. At the same time, he will be aware that when he got off the aircraft at Changi Airport last week, he faced a possible 14 years. Now he will be out within four.

The question now is whether his next appearance in court will be as a prosecution witness in cases involving Baring's management.

The British authorities, in refusing to extradite Leeson to the United Kingdom, and deciding not to press charges of their own appear to believe that, while the merchant bank made a lot of mistakes, the criminal element started and finished in Singapore.

The view in some quarters in this city state is more harsh. Responsibility for the collapse of Barings is seen to go much higher, and the British refusal to pursue the matter is regarded by many as a case of the establishment, including the Bank of England, closing ranks to protect its own. Leeson, as a council estate boy from Watford, north London, was not one of the clique.