France’s highest court of appeal yesterday rejected the final appeal by former rogue trader Jerome Kerviel against his three-year jail sentence for causing a €4.9bn loss to Societe Generale, a lawyer for the bank said.
Lawyer Jean Veil said Kerviel had no further avenues to appeal his criminal conviction.
The former trader was sentenced to jail after being convicted by a Paris court in October 2010 for breach of trust and fraud after making massive losses in unauthorised equity derivative trades in 2008.
The case has dogged France’s third largest bank for more than a decade, with Kerviel successively characterised as an irresponsible and greedy trader, a victim of the system and eventually a reformed criminal eager to denounce the excesses of the finance industry.
Kerviel, 41, has never denied masking his €50bn positions but contends his managers should have been aware of his actions, something the bank has always rejected.
Kerviel served a few months in prison in 2014 before being granted an early release, but he has fought on to clear his name.
At the time he was still locked in a battle in France’s civil courts over damages.
In September 2016, the Versailles Court of Appeals slashed the damages liable to the bank from Kerviel to €1mn down from almost €5bn, judging the bank to be partially responsible for failing to halt Kerviel’s bets.
Months earlier, a labour court had ordered Societe Generale to pay Kerviel more than €450,000 for wrongfully firing him.
Societe Generale still faces a dispute with the French finance ministry over the tax treatment of the 2008 loss triggered by Kerviel.
Kerviel: No more chances.
