Long list of losses due to traders' dubious activities

The following is a chronology of losses by companies and institutions due to traders' activities since 1990:

1990: November - Michael Milken, known as the "junk bond king" who was head of bond operations at US firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for securities fraud. Drexel filed for bankruptcy after paying $650 million (€750 million) in fines and restitution.

1992: April - Indian banks and brokers were accused of colluding illegally to siphon $1.3 billion from the inter-bank securities market to fuel a boom on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

1993: December - German industrial group Metallgesellschaft suffered spectacular losses on energy products-linked derivatives, forcing creditors to mount a $2.2 billion rescue.

1994: January - Chile Copper Corp, the world's largest copper producer, better known as Codelco, lost $175 million through one trader in a financial scandal that rocked Chile.

April - Wall Street brokerage, Kidder, Peabody & Co. fired the head of its government trading desk, Joseph Jett, after the firm uncovered a scheme creating phantom trades, resulting in a one-time charge of $210 million after tax.

December - Orange County, California, declared bankruptcy after disclosing investment losses estimated at over $1.6 billion from its investment portfolio, which relied heavily on derivatives.

1995: February - One of Britain's oldest investment banks, Barings, collapsed after trader Nick Leeson racked up losses of $1.4 billion in unauthorised trades, betting a staggering $27 billion on Japanese shares and bonds. The discovery sent markets round the world into a spin. Leeson was sentenced to six-and-half years in jail in Singapore, and Barings was subsequently sold to Dutch bank ING.

July - The Common Fund of the United States, which oversees almost $20 billion of funds for colleges and other educational institutions, said a rogue trader caused it to lose about $128 million.

September - Daiwa Bank, Japan's fifth largest, suffered a $1.1 billion loss from unauthorised bond trading by Toshihide Iguchi, one of its executives in the United States. US authorities ordered Daiwa to close its US operations. The trader was sentenced to four years in prison for hiding the losses.

1996: June - The world's biggest copper merchant, Sumitomo Corp, said it lost an estimated $2.6 billion over 10 years from unauthorised copper trades, primarily by chief copper trader Yasuo Hamanaka, who was later jailed for eight years.

September - Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (DMG) faced a crisis when it emerged that fund manager Peter Young had breached rules at its British fund management arm, Morgan Grenfell Asset Management. The episode cost Deutsche around £400 million sterling (€653 million) in compensation to investors and an immediate cash injection.

1997: February/March - National Westminster Bank, one of Britain's largest, revealed its NatWest Markets arm suffered a £90 million sterling loss as a result of systematic mispricing of interest rate options over a two-year period.

August - Swiss banking heavyweight Credit Suisse admitted to losses of below $10 million stemming from unauthorised options trades. An equity options trader left the firm as a result.

1998: December - Griffin, a Chicago-based commodity futures firm, collapsed after London trader John Ho Park, who cleared through the firm, allegedly lost $10.3 million trading in German Bund futures on the Swiss-German Eurex, forcing Griffin's closure.

1999: November - Chase Manhattan Corp saw fourth-quarter trading revenues cut by $60 million pre-tax because a currency trader inflated his profits for over a year. The trader was fired.

2000: January - Canadian company TransCanada Pipelines Ltd announced a $49 million loss from unauthorised trading by a senior staff member at its former natural gas trading subsidiary, Pan-Alberta Gas.

February - EOTT Energy Partners LP, a Houston-based independent energy company, said it lost roughly $6.2 million to unauthorised trading and theft of natural gas by a former employee.

2001: January - Former chief financial officer of the now-defunct Griffin Trading Co, Scott Szach, was charged with diverting more than $5.56 million from a firm bank account to a brokerage trading account to fund unauthorised trading in the 18 months before the firm's demise.

September - Merrill Lynch fired two senior executives for failing to supervise a currency dealer who diverted profits to favoured clients, leaving the bank facing a £7 million bill.