The $22-billion Saudi family feud that has the world riveted

Mohammed Algosaibi often turns the palms of his hands up as he talks, as if asking for understanding.

He is trying to explain one of the biggest but least reported failures of the financial crisis.

This has split his family, one of Saudi Arabia's richest, cost some of the world's biggest banks billions of dollars and is now being slugged out in courts from London to the Cayman Islands.

Some family members face travel bans linked to the case so it has fallen to the 32 year old to defend the Algosaibi empire since the 2009 collapse of two Bahraini banks left more than 100 banks including Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Societe Generale owed an estimated $22 billion.

Small wonder he appears uncomfortable.

Text: Reuters

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