63-year-old IT programmer Roger Duronio is said to have been angry when his UBS PaineWebber (now UBS Wealth Management USA) bonus for 2001 came in short of his expectations. He is currently in court in New York, accused of installing a 'logic bomb' in the bank's IT system that cost millions of dollars to put right.

Duronio, who says that he is innocent and that the Feds have simply got the wrong man, is said to have been angry to have 'only' received a $32,000 bonus for his work that year (he is believed to have expected $50,000 on his base of $125,000). He is accused of planting the logic bomb in February 2002, then immediately quitting his job. Believing that the detonation of the 'bomb' would create mayhem and depress UBS's share price, it is claimed he then went out and spent $21,000 on 318 put option contracts, hoping to make a fortune when the stock took a dive.

UBS had hoped that Duronio's trial, which started Tuesday, could be held in secret, as the bank claimed that certain documents that it has provided could be used by hackers to get into the bank's computer systems. The hearing will, however, be held in open court.

IT manager Elvira Maria Rodriquez took the stand Tuesday, and told how the events of 4th March, 2002, will forever be etched on her memory. She told the court that the bank's servers went down all over the place, leaving around 17,000 brokers across the United States unable to make trades. Up to 400 branch offices were affected, as files were deleted and back-up systems went down within minutes. UBS says that it spent around $3.1m sorting out the mess, and an unknown amount of business was lost as systems were down for over a day. Ms Rodriquez said that 'it was pretty unbelievable. It was the magnitude of it. How on earth were we going to bring them all back ? How was this going to affect the company ? If I had a scale of one to 10, this would be a 10-plus'.

Duronio has been charged with computer sabotage, mail fraud and securities fraud. He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in clink, plus a $1m fine, if convicted. Oh, and UBS's shares barely moved on the news of the IT 'meltdown'. And Duronio's put options expired - worthless.

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