Kerviel Loses Appeal on SocGen Trading Loss

The 2010 verdict by a French court finding Jerome Kerviel solely responsible for Société Générale’s trading losses of 4.9 billion euros ($6.34 billion) in 2008 was upheld Wednesday by a Paris appeals court.

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the decision by Judge Mireille Filippini upheld the earlier verdict, which found that Kerviel was guilty of abusing SocGen’s trust, faking documents and entering false data into the computers.

Kerviel had argued that the bank was aware of the actions he took beyond his authority, and further, was scapegoating him for its 2008 subprime mortgage market loss—one of the largest in history. The loss was so massive that it obliterated nearly two years of pretax profit at the bank’s investment banking unit.

In his quest for exoneration, Kerviel changed his defense lawyers and even filed criminal complaints against SocGen prior to the appeal hearings. As the appeal went forward, his lawyers asserted that the bank had used Kerviel, letting him make unauthorized trades to hide its jeopardy from the subprime mortgage market in the U.S.