When Leeson was arrested in 1995 for bringing Barings Bank to its knees,
it initially seemed as if he had single-handedly crushed the company.
Indeed, it was he alone who found himself in the dark confines of a
Singapore jail, from where he wrote Rogue Trader. Now updated for the
twentieth anniversary of the collapse of Barings, this is his story of a
broken system; of a cast of characters blind to anything but profits -
whatever the cost.
Leeson's tale of boom and bust is an important reminder of the immense
power the banking system held and, worryingly, still holds.