The case is formally identified and cited as "No 5",[1] though some observers regard it as the sixth in the saga of litigation concerning Barings Bank.

[citation needed] Nick Leeson was a dishonest futures trader in Singapore for Barings Bank.

Leeson abused this situation secretly to make increasingly large unauthorized trades on his employer's behalf.

After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the stock market went into a downward spiral, and the truth of his losses was uncovered, bankrupting Barings.

Unfitness was determined by the objective standard that should ordinarily be expected of people fit to be directors of companies.