Remember this guy? He held the title for largest banking fraud in history for about 5 minutes until Bernie Madoff made his 4.9€ billion loss look like small potatoes.
Jerome Kerviel brought a distinctly French flavor to the term "rogue trader"; he elevated whining to an art form by complaining that he should have been better supervised and blamed the relentless pressure of a 35-hour work week for his downfall. (Alright, I made that last part up to be a dick, but you get the point). In a final bit of Gallic panache, he almost brought down SocGen without profiting a single penny for himself.
Now he's looking for a little help from his friends. Facing trial next month, Kerviel is hoping some Grand Balancement Pénis (Big Swinging Dicks) will testify on his behalf. So far, he hasn't had any takers.
He's facing 5 years in prison if convicted, and even if he's exonerated he's facing the remainder of his days working for a shitty computer company for $3,000 a month. Oh, how the mighty do fall. C'est La Vie!
Coincidentally, my kids are playground buddies with the kid of one the guys SocGen brought in to mop up the mess. When I ask him about it, he just rolls his eyes. I'm thinking Kerviel's judge is gonna have the same reaction.
I wonder if I could lose 5 billion euro in one trade if I tried...
In this story, Kerviel is a mere scapegoat to protect the hierarchy of the company. Everybody working within this department was aware of his behavior, and the company turned a blind eye until the day he losed big bucks.
For the record, he made at first lots of cash and nobody within Société Générale had something to say about that. Kerviel is only an epitome of one of the numerous drifts of this financial crisis.
What he currently does is quite courageous, he will be blamed for what he did even though everybody knows he was unable to do that alone...
just proves to show you that when shit hits the fan nobody has the integrity to stand up. makes me sick personally.
yup its all about finger pointing... shit sucks
Haha! That shit just made my day. Thanks Edmundo.
Can anyone provide this guy's full story ?
haha, i always think this guy looks like adam scott... the actor not the golfer.
This is what happens when you move an ops guy to FO. He uses his ops knowledge to screw with the back office systems and hide his positions
definitely scapegoat
I have a question.
He had a 2 billion dollar profit when SocGen discovered his positions. They then liquidated his positions over the course of three days and had a net loss of 7.5 billion (9.5 when you consider his profit). Did SocGen liquidating the position over the course of three days cause the massive losses?
^^^ I think what really happened is SocGen had a gaping hole in their books from just generally being a shitty, badly run European bank and "discovered" the positions in order to save face. I would seriously question whether Kerviel's trades really lost them 4.9bn. It's gonna pale into comparison for the losses they are going to have to swallow when Greek bonds get a haircut anyway.
Exercitationem impedit nobis dolorem ea qui ratione. At nulla nihil corporis quia soluta. Vel commodi quibusdam ex repellat qui. Aspernatur nam laboriosam pariatur laborum deleniti illum itaque. Fugiat aspernatur aspernatur qui illum quaerat reiciendis libero.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...