A FORMER finance director from Britain's oldest merchant bank, Barings, has been barred from working as a manager or director in the City of London financial district for three years, London's main financial regulator said yesterday.

The Securities and Futures Authority (SFA) said Mr Geoffrey Broadhurst would be banned from holding a company directorship "for a period of at least three years". The regulator said he had tried to persuade Barings' auditors to cover up an unauthorised cash transfer worth £50 million sterling from London to Singapore during February 1995, just days before the bank crisis caused by disastrous derivatives trades.

Nick Leeson was sentenced to a six and a half year jail term after he ran up then tried to conceal losses worth $1.2 billion (about, £800 million). As head of Barings group finance, Mr Broadhurst was in charge of derivatives trades out of Singapore.

The SFA said that he understood the £50 million payment to be "an unauthorised transaction", but instead of investigating the apparent breach of bank guidelines, Mr Broadhurst "sought to persuade the auditors to exclude all reference to it".

The SFA ordered Mr Boradhurst to pay £10,000 costs.