London, Feb. 21: The England and Wales Cricket Board has terminated, with immediate effect, its contracts with the Stanford group, owned by billionaire Allen Stanford, accused of fraud.

The ECB also announced it that it "will not proceed with any further Stanford Twenty20 matches or the Stanford-sponsored international Quadrangular Twenty20 events in England".

The decision was taken at ECB’s executive committee meeting held on Friday. The ECB had suspended all the discussions with Stanford the moment the business tycoon was charged with $ 9 billion fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The ECB chief executive David Collier said their decision will not affect the English counties adversely. "Given the uncertainty of the financial markets and the sponsorship dispute between Digicel and the West Indies Cricket Board over the matches in Antigua in 2008, the Executive Committee and Board when setting the 2009 budgets took a prudent position in creating a contingency in case the Antigua matches did not proceed.

— PTI