Subscribe to this blog's feedSG's Jerome Kerviel is now the most notorious trader in the world, under investigation for deceiving his superiors and losing his employer €4.9 billion in a single month...
Hang on, surely I mean his former employer? No. Because, as the Wall Street Journal explains, he still works for SG - and he can't be fired.
French law stipulates that to do that, the bank must first call him in for a sit-down meeting and explain its dissatisfaction. He has the right to bring along a trade-union official, a lawyer or anyone else he'd like.
That will be complicated: A pair of Paris judges this week released Mr. Kerviel from custody but forbade him to have contact with the bank...
Fascinating. (Apart from anything else, that's one review meeting I'd really like to sit in on. "So, Jerome. How do you think the last year has gone for you?")
The WSJ, of course, doesn't miss the opportunity to mock the French for having "a soft spot for cheeky rogues, particularly when their victims are well-to-do." Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid, Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Ned Kelly, Phoolan Devi, Ivanhoe Martin and Song Jiang, of course, those famously French cultural heroes.
It's only at the end that the Journal reveals the real reason for its animus towards Kerviel - he didn't turn a profit!
...He says he can't fathom why, by all accounts, the Société Générale trader didn't profit personally from two years of unauthorized, high-risk transactions."All that work for nothing? That sounds pretty dumb," says Mr. Rocancourt. "It doesn't take a genius to lose money. Anyone can do that."
