The bank, Germany's Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank (HVB), is seeking to recover around US$30 million (S$43.5 million) from APB.

Its lawyer, Senior Counsel Alvin Yeo, delivered his opening statement after the other bank seeking to recover lost funds - the northern European Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) - closed its case on Thursday.

The case, which arose out of former APB manager Chia Teck Leng's defrauding of four banks, has been running for the past month before Justice Belinda Ang.

One bank has since had its suit dismissed, while the other withdrew its case.

Mr Yeo said that, among other things, he would show the court there were 'serious failures' in the brewery's internal controls, 'such that there was nothing to deter' Chia from fleecing the banks of more than $100 million between 1999 and 2003 to fund his high-roller casino lifestyle.

The way APB ran things was akin to 'having the fox guard the henhouse', Mr Yeo said.

Chia, 47, gave the banks fictitious documents with the forged signatures of top APB executives, which convinced the banks to give him credit facilities in the brewery's name.

He then became the sole signatory to a personal slush fund, which he tapped for his casino jaunts worldwide. By the time he was arrested, he had blown $62 million.

He is now serving a 42-year jail term.

Read the full report in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.