FSRC Report Sent to DPP

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has a copy of the report conducted into the Financial Services Regulatory Commission (FSRC) following fraud charges against Texan investor Allen Stanford and an extradition request for former FSRC head Leroy King.

The contents of the report have so far been kept secret. However, it is expected that the report would shed some light on the FSRC's operations up to late 2008, before the US Securities Exchange Commission indicted Stanford and King to answer fraud and bribery charges in the United States on fraud charges laid by US authorities..

The US alleges that Stanford operated a massive Ponzi scheme, while King was lax in his supervision of the offshore Stanford International Bank.

The DPP will have to decide whether any criminal charges will be laid. In a statement on March 19, the Antiguan government said: "It is alleged that, by failing to properly regulate SIBL, Leroy King, the former Administrator of the FSRC, facilitated Stanford's Ponzi Scheme for personal gain."

King was sent home following the indictment. The government asserted that "There is neither now nor was there any collusion between Stanford and the Spencer administration."

An investigation was commissioned to identify any systemic failures or breaches in operational procedures within the FSRC and in its examinations of offshore financial institutions. It was conducted by a group of international experts, whose findings, according to the government, "were that Antigua & Barbuda's international finance laws and regulations, of themselves, could not be faulted."

King, who served as administrator and chief executive officer of the FSRC, has been accused by US authorities of accepting bribes from Stanford to falsify audits of the SIB. Both Stanford and King have protested their innocence.

While Stanford is in jail awaiting trial, King is awaiting the outcome of his extradition hearing