Barings Trader Pins Hopes On Unusual Legal Strategy Leeson Struggling To Avoid Being Extradited To Singapore

Nick Leeson’s lawyers want Britain to indict the former Barings trader blamed for the bank’s collapse.

It’s an unusual strategy, they admit.

“But it’s an unusual case,” attorney Eberhard Kempf said Wednesday.

Extradition to Britain would get Leeson what he wanted when he was arrested March 2 at Frankfurt airport en route from Malaysia - back home to London and away from Singapore, where he could face up to seven years in prison.

In exchange, Leeson’s lawyers suggested, he might give British authorities information on the role played in the bank’s demise by Barings executives in London.

Singapore wants Leeson, former head of Barings’ futures trading business there, on charges he forged documents showing he had money to pay for his high-stakes gamble that Tokyo’s stock market would rise.

Instead, the market fell, costing Barings $1.4 billion, destroying the 223-year-old bank and stunning world stock markets. The Dutch banking and insurance company ING Group took over Barings on Monday.

Kempf acknowledged he has few good arguments to keep Leeson from being sent back to Singapore.

British authorities haven’t said whether they will charge Leeson.

“If there were an extradition request from Britain, it would open up all sorts of possibilities,” said Stephen Pollard, a British lawyer who visited Leeson in prison. “Leeson has given us some very interesting things on what was going on in the bank until February.”

German authorities could choose to grant a British request instead of Singapore’s.