Jérôme Kerviel Jérôme Kerviel Jérôme Kerviel (; born 1977) is a French trader who was convicted in the 2008 Société Générale trading loss for breach of trust, forgery and unauthorized use of the bank's computers, resulting in losses valued at €4.9 billion. Société Générale characterizes Kerviel as a rogue trader and claims Kerviel worked these trades alone and without its authorization. These assertions have been met with skepticism by some of Kerviel's former colleagues and acquaintances, as well as by some members of the news media. Kerviel had told investigators that his trading behavior was widespread at the company and that making
2008 Société Générale trading loss told them his actions were also practiced by other traders in the company. Kerviel admits to exceeding his credit limits, but claims he was working to increase bank profits. He told authorities that the bank was happy with his previous year's performance, and was expecting to be paid a €300,000 bonus. Family members speaking out say the bank is using Kerviel as a scapegoat to excuse its recent heavy losses. The bank states that Kerviel was assigned to arbitrage discrepancies between equity derivatives and cash equity prices, and "began creating the fictitious trades in late 2006 and early 2007, but