Quote:

There were gasps in the Paris criminal court yesterday when the judge read out the order to repay the astronomical sum, the largest damages award to be paid by a single person in the country’s history. Mr Kerviel’s current monthly salary as a computer consultant amounts to €2,300, which means it would take him 177,536 years to pay off the €4.9 billion he lost Société Générale in illicit trade bets in 2008. In theory, France’s second largest bank can force him to hand over all his earnings bar a small monthly sum for “basic needs”. Société Générale said it did not expect its 33-year-old former employee to repay the debt any time soon, and that it was largely “moral compensation”. However, its lawyers insisted the bank would pursue him for any earnings he makes out of the world’s biggest rogue trading scandal. Although Mr Kerviel’s publisher declined to provide sales figures, 'Engrenage', or 'Caught in the System', the book he wrote setting out his version of events, came out in June to massive media fanfare. A film is said to be in development, possibly starring the former trader himself, and recounting how he came to make illicit bets that at one stage reached €50 billion and almost ruined his bank. T-shirts, many lionising Mr Kerviel as an anti-hero, did a roaring trade after the scandal was uncovered in 2008. There has been speculation he will seek to reap financial gain from his notoriety in a similar way to Nick Leeson, the man who spent three and a half years in Singaporean jail after bringing down Britain’s Barings Bank in 1995. Leeson wrote a bestselling book and charges £6,000 for speaking appointments. Mr Kerviel remained expressionless as the court found him guilty of breach of trust, forgery and entering false data into his bank’s computers. Until an appeal is concluded he remains free and will not have to start repayments.

Jérôme Kerviel will need 177,000 years to repay €5 billion - Telegraph

But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness...

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Erm... I am personally not convinced in the slightest that he is a scapegoat. I do believe he was guilty as charged.

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Sure, but I bet that most of his colleagues aren't squeaky clean either - he just screwed up/went to far/got found out.

(Incidentally, the biblical concept of the scapegoat just doesn't fit in at all with how we think of it - in Leviticus the regular goat gets ritually slaughtered. I know which one I'd rather be.)

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Originally Posted by Zichao

Sure, but I bet that most of his colleagues aren't squeaky clean either - he just screwed up/went to far/got found out.

Depends what you mean. That was Kerviel's defense - That the bank was encouraging everyone to breach their trading limits. He couldn't prove it. And, frankly, I doubt it could be true and not easily proven - Trading leaves an audit trail. If all the traders were exceeding their trading limits, they'd have to maintain an official trading P&L for the audit/admin part of the bank and regulators while having a real P&L for themselves and their managers.

Kerviel managed to do just that. But I don't see how that would work if hundreds of guys were doing it.

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