Kerviel blames his bosses of tolerating his excesses by Magdalena Rosova

On the second day of the Jerome Kerviel's trial, the former head of investment division SocGen, Jean-Pierre Mustier, said that the trader took unreal risk which caused the company's loss of 4.9 billion euros. The trial over billions in losses takes place in Paris and for many it is the symbol of the banking excesses driven by the financial crisis. Kerviel worked on the “Delta One” trading desk in Socialite Generale, which is one of the biggest banks in Europe. Mustier told the court that he did not understand why Kerviel had done it and he even had not apologized. Societe Generale discovered the fraud in January 2008 and immediately rushed to stop Kerviel's acti! vities. It seems Kerviel took risk of 50 billion euros and the bank had difficulties to unravel 50 billion euros of unauthorized trades. The bank is now suffering the heavy losses. Kerviel is desperately trying to protect himself saying that his bosses had known about his activities but had not said anything as long as earnings had been rolling in. Kerviel, 33, said it was the fault of the bank which had tolerated his excess. He admitted that he often passed trading limits and logged fake transactions. Kerviel said that exceeding of limits had been a common practice in the bank and no one had ever been reprimanded. After the Kerviel's scandal revealed, the SocGen executive was forced by public to step down and last year he altogether left the bank. Kerviel faces a sentence of five years in prison and fine of 375,000 euro.

related story (sgx17537): http://www.businessweek.com/news/! 2010-06- 10/socgen-disputes-...

by Magdalena Rosova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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