UPDATE 1-Antigua suspends regulator in Stanford case
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MIAMI, June 19 (Reuters) - Antigua and Barbuda has suspended the financial regulator who was indicted on charges of collaborating in an alleged Ponzi scheme run by Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, the Caribbean nation's attorney general said on Friday.
Leroy King was suspended from his post as head of the Antigua and Barbuda Financial Services Regulatory Commission, and the nation's Cabinet will meet on Tuesday to address further disciplinary action against him, Attorney General Justin Simon said in a statement.
He did not indicate whether the United States had asked Antigua and Barbuda to extradite King.
U.S. investigators alleged that King got "thousands of dollars in bribes" from Stanford to ensure Antigua and Barbuda's financial regulators "looked the other way" and conducted sham audits of Stanford International Bank Ltd, which is accused of bilking thousands of investors out of billions of dollars.
Simon said his nation's government was "naturally concerned" by allegations King had compromised the performance of his duties for personal gain and it "will not sit idly by."
"Antigua and Barbuda's offshore business activities is once again placed under intense international scrutiny, and this will clearly have adverse effects on the economy and raise questions about our regulatory legal framework," Simon said.
"I wish to reassure the general public and the wider international community that the Commission's Board has itself been engaged during the past several weeks in rigorous self-examination along with an internal investigation of Mr. King's employment conduct." (Reporting by Jane Sutton; Editing by Peter Cooney)
