The Rogue Trader Speaks

摘要

Two questions have remained since rogue futures trader Nicholas Leeson singlehandedly sank Barings PLC earlier this year: Would he be shipped back to Singapore, where he worked for the bank? And, would he drag his bosses down with him? Bad news for Leeson: he may be headed back to the Asian state, where spray-painting a car can get you six lashes-and white-collar crime draws long jail sentences. Worse news for the British tabloids: he isn't going to squeal on his superiors. That revelation emerged last week when Leeson made his first media appearance since the bank's collapse. In an exclusive interview with TV journalist David Frost, scheduled to be aired Sept. 11 by the BBC, the jailed trader dispelled speculation that he would shift blame for the bank's failure to his superiors in London. When asked if his bosses knew all along about a secret account in which he piled up millions of dollars of losses in risky trades, he paused, then answered, "No, no." The two-word admission may have destroyed Leeson's strongest legal argument for having his case tried in Britain-that sending him back to Singapore, where he was general manager of the Barings office, would put any British co-conspirators beyond the reach of the law.