A FORMER senior director of Barings, the merchant bank that crashed in 1995 after rogue trader Nick Leeson ran up £800 million sterling losses, has been disciplined by City watchdog the Securities and Futures Authority (SFA), it emerged today.

Mr James Bax, former head of Barings South Asia, has been reprimanded, suspended from the SFA's register of directors and told to pay £10,000 costs. He admitted failing to properly investigate a bogus £50 million debt supposedly owed to Barings, but which Leeson had falsified.