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Latest update: 07/10/2010
- Jérôme Kerviel - Société Générale
SocGen to spare 'rogue trader' Kerviel full damages
French bank Société Générale has said it will not seek the full 4.9 billion euros in damages imposed on its former trader Jérôme Kerviel, who was sentenced Tuesday to three years in jail, with two suspended, for illicit trading.
By News Wires (text)
AFP - French bank Societe Generale said Wednesday it would spare rogue trader Jerome Kerviel from paying the full five billion euros of compensation awarded in a massive fraud scandal.
Societe Generale spokeswoman Caroline Guillaumin told France Info radio the bank would not enforce the whole sum awarded Tuesday by a Paris court, equivalent to about 6.8 billion dollars.
"There is no question of demanding such sums from one single man," she said.
The bank is "completely open to finding another solution which is in the interests of our shareholders and employees as well as taking into account Jerome Kerviel's situation," Guillaumin added.
Kerviel was found guilty of fraud and breach of trust by carrying out covert stock market deals worth 50 billion euros which were discovered in January 2008 and almost brought down Societe Generale, one of Europe's biggest banks.
He said at his trial that in his current job as an IT consultant he earns 2,300 euros a month
This puts the record compensation award -- the same amount the bank says it lost because of his unauthorised transactions -- far beyond his means.
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Comments (2)
Regulate - don't procrastinate.
I wonder how much money was made for the banks in the form of profits by the actions of such traders in the good times..... How nice it was of the bank not to persue this individual for his desparate and rather silly [and expensive] actions..... But then again what do you expect when you let people play with customers money and don't keep your finger on the pulse - of course you're going to get burned now and again. The real question is this, WILL THEY LEARN?
Suck it in, and cope.
The sum of money involved, is so huge, that to even talk in terms of a paying it back, is beyond ludicrous. Even if Jérôme Kerviel was in a position to pay the bank €1,000,000 a year, it would take him 4,900-years to return the money, and without any interest. That being so, Société Générale will just have to suck it in, and cope.
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