Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank AG and SEB AB appealed a Singapore court ruling that Asia Pacific Breweries wasn’t responsible for US$57 million ($78 million) in loans taken out by a former executive to fund his gambling addiction.

The banks asked Singapore’s Court of Appeal today to dismiss an Aug 31 ruling that they were “easy prey” to loans fraudulently obtained by Chia Teck Leng, the Singapore-based company’s former finance manager, in the brewer’s name.

HVB, based in Munich, and Sweden’s SEB missed warning signs and discrepancies in documents that “were staring bank officers in the face” and ignored their normal banking procedures when dealing with Chia, Judge Belinda Ang said in August.

“The use which Chia made of his employer’s name in order to borrow with ease from the bank was just as much a fraud on APB as it was on the banks,” Ang wrote in her 232-page ruling.

Chia defrauded four banks including Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. of $117 million by forging the signatures of APB directors to get loans in the Tiger Beer maker’s name between 1999 and 2003. The Tokyo-based banks withdrew their case against Asia Pacific Breweries on the seventh day of the trial in 2004.

Chia, described as an “inveterate gambler who unremittingly resorted to cheating and forgery” by Ang, was sentenced in 2004 to 42 years in jail for cheating and forgery. He also embezzled S$53 million from the brewery, according to court filings.

Asia Pacific Breweries denied responsibility in the fraud and counter-sued SEB, Sweden’s third-largest bank by market value, for “dishonest assistance,” according to court filings. The brewery is a unit of Fraser & Neave, Singapore’s biggest beverage maker.

Drew & Napier LLC is representing Asia Pacific Breweries while Wong Partnership LLP represents HVB and Rajah & Tann LLP for SEB.