Thursday, January 24, 2008

Jérôme Kerviel Named In Société Générale Scandal

The French bank Société Générale stunned financial markets today by revealing that it had been the victim of a near-€5 billion (£3.7 billion) rogue trading fraud, one of the world's largest and four times the size of the cover-up by Nick Leeson, the man who sank Barings.

The bank declined to identify the trader, but he has been named as Jérôme Kerviel, a 31-year-old options trader.

"He is not here and we do not know when he will be back," said a colleague who answered his line at the bank's trading room in La Défense, the business district west of Paris.

Three of Mr Kerviel's SocGen colleagues said that they were "not authorised to discuss" their friend and directed inquiries to the bank. - Times Online

Ouch.

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