A billion-dollar legal battle between Libya’s $67 billion sovereign wealth fund and Goldman Sachs is expected to heat up London’s High Court Monday. It is, on its face, a Goliath vs. Goliath battle—an investment fund built on the back of Libya’s oil fortune taking on one of the world’s most powerful banks. Only, the Libyan Investment Authority is positioning itself as closer to David in this tale. Lawyers for the fund allege that Goldman took advantage of the “naïve and unsophisticated” fund in order to coerce it into risky trades that caused it to lose about $1.2 billion.

“You just delivered a pitch on structured leveraged loans to someone who lives in the middle of the desert with his camels,” a Goldman vice president wrote in a 2008 e-mail, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg that were disclosed for the trial.

In the lawsuit, the L.I.A. contends that it had limited financial experience in 2008, and the bank used “undue influence” to woo the fund with gifts, trips overseas, “heavy drinking and girls,” and a highly coveted Goldman Sachs internship. The L.I.A. claimed that Haitem Zarti, the brother of the fund’s former deputy chief, spent a 13-month internship with the bank—what the fund is now calling a “breach of Goldman’s own compliance rules” and a tactic used to “improperly influence the L.I.A.’s decision to enter [the trades] by the favourable treatment it conferred on Haitem Zarti,” according to The Financial Times.

Goldman has flatly denied the allegations, saying that it maintained “an arm’s length” relationship with banker and client, and that the derivatives trades the L.I.A. references “were not difficult to understand.”

The case, which is expected to play out over seven weeks, sheds light on the kinds of trades Goldman was making on behalf of clients leading up to the financial crisis, and offers a glimpse into the way the bank sweetens the deal for clients who may need a spoon full of sugar before taking on risk. It is also expected to tally up quite the legal bill. The F.T. reported that by 2014, the L.I.A. had racked up a $1 million legal bill—a sum Goldman called “eye watering.” Two years later, the fees are expected to be significantly higher.