Rogue trader refuses to be scapegoat
Kerviel says he will not be made a scapegoat by his employer in Société Générale's multibillion euro losses
Jérôme Kerviel, the Société
Générale‘s trader at the centre of the bank’s multibillion dollar loss, told
French news agency Agence France Presse yesterday, he accepted ‘his share of
responsibility’ for the bank’s €4.9bn (£3.7bn) losses, but refused to be alone
to shoulder the blame.
‘I never had any personal ambition in this affair,’ he said. ‘The aim was to
earn money for the bank. You lose your sense of the sums involved when you are
in this kind of work. It’s disembodied. You get a bit carried away.’
French prosecutors have accused Kerviel of breach of trust, falsifying
documents and breaching computer security.
A report handed to French finance minister Christine Lagarde on Monday noted
SocGen’s risk management and internal controls were inadequate. This cast new
light on the claim that the losses were the work of a single rogue trader,
The Guardian reports.