IT WAS A routine currency swap. A German bank would remit 73 million deutschemarks and receive US$40 million in return. The bank fulfilled its end of the agreement, yet the US$40 million never entered its New York bank account.
The bank's counterpart in the deal, a high-profile Hong Kong investment bank, was on the brink of collapse. In 24 hours, it would face liquidation.
The date was January 9, 1998, and it is being re-lived over and over again in boardrooms, classrooms, saloons and, in the near future, the courts.
If nothing else, it has proved that a day is a long time in the life of an imploding investment bank.
The 24 hours leading up to the dissolution of Peregrine Group - a winding-up petition was filed on January 10 - may soon be dissected to a microscopic degree, being the focus a lawsuit brought by Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft.
Perhaps most intriguing will be the question of exactly how much the former Peregrine directors knew about the group's financial bill of health: did they really believe there were genuine prospects for survival even on January 9?
The lawsuit centres on the former directors' state of mind and disclosure, and promises to keep Peregrine in the public eye despite a financial inspector's report into the collapse which supposedly closed the book on this particular chapter of Hong Kong's corporate history.