Peter Lim, head of the finance division, was dismissed along with two trading division executives, Gerard Rigby, and Abdallah Kharma, said a statement from the state-owned Chinese jet fuel trader.

A fourth manager, Cindy Chong, resigned. She headed the banking relations and risk management division, CAO said.

Lim was charged in June in connection with his alleged failure to disclose that the firm had chalked up losses from derivatives trading in its quarterly financial statements.

CAO accumulated $550 million in losses in derivatives trading which only came to light in November 2004 when the company was forced to seek court protection from creditors.

It was the city-state's biggest financial scandal since the collapse of British merchant bank Barings in 1995.

CAO's suspended chief executive, Chinese national Chen Jiulin, has been charged with 15 counts of cheating and forgery while running the company. He is to go on trial in March.

Among other charges, Chen was accused of conspiring with Lim to cheat Deutsche Bank of more than $111 million and of forging the signature of CAO chairman Jia Changbin.

Chen's fellow Chinese nationals -- Jia, director Li Yongji and director Gu Yanfei -- were also charged.

CAO appointed a review committee after auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers said "serious failures of corporate governance" were to blame for the massive losses.

In a separate statement Wednesday, CAO said its board had reviewed the committee's report and "affirms the recommendations of the committee for improvement of corporate governance, risk management and internal controls in the company."

The statement revealed no detail of the report's findings.

"The scope of the report covered areas such as the board of directors, the various committees, management structure and practices, financial and risk management, investor relations, internal and external audit functions and company manuals," CAO said.

It said the recommendations will be referred for review and implementation by a new company board that will be formed as part of the restructuring.

"The board of directors accepts that there are lessons to be learnt from this unfortunate financial debacle," the CAO statement said.

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