Socit Gnrale rogue trader insists bank bosses knew what he was doing
THE ROGUE trader who accumulated trading positions that caused a €4.9bn (£4.2bn) loss for French bank Société Générale (SocGen) yesterday told a French court his bosses at the bank were aware of his activities.
Jerome Kerviel’s lawyers said he never tried to hide the trades from superiors.
They added that 300 of his colleagues at the bank would have been able to see his trading positions.
In legal filings, lawyer Olivier Metzner repeated claims, made by Kerviel since SocGen revealed the trades in January 2008, that he should not be found guilty of abuse of trust, falsifying documents and computer hacking because his activities were out in the open.
Kerviel admitted he evaded compliance controls at the bank and faked documents to disguise his trades, but he continues to insist his superiors knew this was going on and the trades were registered in SocGen’s accounts.
He has also claimed SocGen’s trading controls were strong and would have alerted his superiors to his daily trading positions.
SocGen continues to claim he made the trades without the requisite clearance and then hid them with faked hedges. It says it wasn’t aware of the extent of his trading positions, and attests this is proven by reports from market watchdogs and the police.