Jerome Kerviel, Societe General Scammer: I Lost My Sense Of Reality
PARIS — French judges questioned former Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel and his former boss Thursday in possibly his last hearing in the yearlong probe into the world's biggest trading loss.
Kerviel also disavowed a newspaper report that claimed he said he "lost his sense of reality" on the bank's trading desk.
Kerviel shot to infamy last January after Societe Generale SA accused him of inflicting the French bank with a loss of euro4.9 billion.
Judges are investigating some euro50 billion of what Societe Generale says were unauthorized trade positions held by Kerviel. The 32-year-old trader is facing preliminary charges for forgery, breach of trust and unauthorized computer use.
"My life and my future is at stake," Kerviel told RTL radio Thursday morning, referring to what he and court officials expected to be his last hearing.
Kerviel has always insisted his superiors were aware of what he was doing and did not stop him as long as he made money for the bank. In 2007, he earned euro1.4 billion for the bank, but his luck changed dramatically for the worse in 2008.
On Thursday, he and his former superior Eric Cordelle faced the investigating judges together and then the judges questioned Kerviel alone.
One of Kerviel's lawyers, Eric Dupond-Moretti, said after the closed-door session that Kerviel accepts responsibility for "a certain number of things but the mechanisms of control and assistance didn't function at all in the heart of Societe Generale."
Jean Veil, the lawyer for Societe Generale, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that Kerviel lied to cover his tracks and "when you are not alone, you don't need to lie."
Societe Generale spokeswoman Laura Schalk declined to comment on the hearing.
Employed at the bank since 2000, Kerviel worked his way up from a desk that monitors traders to a job on the futures desk where he invested the bank's money by hedging on European equity market indices.
The French bank says Kerviel acted alone. Skeptics have questioned whether Kerviel could have manipulated such unfathomable sums _ comparable to a small country's annual economy _ without assistance from or the acquiesce of higher-ups.
Kerviel's lawyers said they want more time to investigate amid reports the examining magistrates are moving toward wrapping up the case.
"Tonight, the investigation is not over," said defense attorney Bernard Benaiem. "There are things to see, things to clarify."
In a 15-minute statement opening the hearing, the trader expressed his "dissatisfaction" with the way the probe has proceeded, including with "the general attitude of the investigating chambers which have refused most, if not all, our requests."
Once the investigation is wrapped up, lawyers for both sides have three months to seek supplementary motions. The trial is not expected to begin before the end of the year.
In an interview published Thursday in the popular daily Le Parisien, Kerviel was quoted as saying he lost his "sense of reality" on the bank's trading desk and gambled with millions as if he were playing a video game.
The story quoted Kerviel as saying he "was taking crazy risks" and "making astronomical gains that brought me, sometimes, a really great pleasure."
"It's a bit like playing a video game. Losing or winning millions, it only takes a few seconds," he was quoted as saying.
But Kerviel told RTL radio later he was "shocked and scandalized" by the publication in Le Parisien, "especially on a day as important as today, where I will probably have my last hearing, where my life and my future is at stake."
"The statements were taken out of their context," he said. "I never gave an interview in my life."
Le Parisien journalist Francois Vignolle did not return messages seeking comment.
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Associated Press writers Emma Vandore and Angela Charlton contributed to this report from Paris.
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PIERRE ANTOINE SOUCHARD | January 22, 2009 05:02 PM EST |
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