Bax escapes Barings prosecution

The former head of Barings in Asia, James Bax, will not be prosecuted by the Singapore authorities in connection with the collapse of the bank in February 1994.

Despite strong criticisms made of Mr Bax in a damning report into the bank's failure, the authorities have decided that he, and a further three figures involved in the case, have no charges to answer.

The threat of prosecution also has been removed from Simon Jones, a former director of Barings Futures (Singapore), Edmund Wong, a director of a software engineering group, and Daniel Argyropoulous, a trader on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (Simex).

Mr Argyropoulous was also said to be a close friend of Nick Leeson, the derivatives trader whose dealings in Japanese stock futures traded on the Simex derivatives market racked up losses of more than US$1.4 billion, leading to the collapse of Barings, which was eventually rescued by being bought by Dutch bankers ING.

After a probe into the affair lasting more than 14 months, the Singapore Commercial Affairs Department said last night that it had recommended to the Attorney-General that there were insufficient grounds to bring criminal charges against the four, and he had agreed that no further action should be taken.

This leaves Leeson as the only person, so far, who has been prosecuted in connection with the Barings scandal. In December last year he was found guilty of cheating and sentenced to 61/2 years in a Singapore jail.

The only other action has been against former Barings chief executive Peter Norris, who has beenbanned from working as a City of London manager for three years.