Jerome Kerviel hid bets to “save appearances”
Just a big game of hide and seek with the adults pretending they didn’t know he was under the stairs after all…?
Jerome Kerviel had been placing bets outside his limit for over two years by the time his last and biggest gamble unravelled on Jan. 18, 2008.
Yesterday, Kerviel told a French court that he kept his unauthorised positions at Société Générale hidden to “save appearances”. But whilst he never admitted the unauthorised trading to superiors, he claimed it was impossible they did not know what he was doing.
“[I hid the positions] to save appearances. What I was doing was obvious to everyone, but I wanted to give the impression, the appearance of a cover,” he said.
SocGen has denied tacit complicity; the bank’s head of global markets claimed the bank was unaware of Kerviel’s positions which cost it €4.9bn (£4bn) to unwind following their discovery.
Kerviel faces up to five years in prison and a €375,000 fine if found guilty.
