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Thread: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

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    £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    France's second-largest bank, Societe Generale, has announced it's suffered from a fraud by one of it's traders that amounted to more than £3.5 billion. There's an awful lot of noughts on the end of that number.

    It also appears to have suffered a 2.05 billion Euro write-down due to their sub-prime activities.

    That amounts to a rather eye-watering double-whammy.

    The fraud is being put down to unauthorised activities of ONE trader. Surely, any half-competent bank would have procedures to prevent unauthorised trades, and certainly to prevent them reaching that scale. And according to news reports, it's a fraud as a result of a doubling-up type activity on securites over a period of many months, so it's a long-ish term failure to notice it, not even something that went past them too fast to notice. That suggests that management were asleep at the wheel, too.

    Other banks aren't impressed. Ion-Marc Valhi at Amas Bank said "I am sorry but I have a hard time buying the fact that a trader was able to set up a 'secret trade' of 4.9 billion [Euros] without anybody finding out". Me too.

    Frederic Hamm of Agilis Gestion, believes that the fraud "impacts the reputation of the bank". No poop, Sherlock. That strikes me as an announcement from the Ministry of the Blindingly Obvious.


    Seems to me that Nick Leeson's activities at Barings were a model of integrity, restraint and financial acumen compared to this. Though they haven't yet identified the trader responsible - where are you working these days, Nick? (Just kidding).

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    Ғо ѕніzzLє му піzzLє chicken's Avatar
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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    Other banks aren't impressed.
    I am! That's an incredible achievement in the field of Fail!


    Dear Societe Generale:



    I'm assuming this is going to do wonders for the worries of a recession at the moment...
    1.21 GIGAWATTS!!!!!

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    That is the funniest picture I have ever seen. Ever.
    sig removed by Zak33

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    that is one funny picture!! - we should have dedicated thread just for such funny pictures

    back on topic - they know who it is - they just aren't disclosing the name yet.

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    I bet it was Saracen when he was moonlighting at Societe Generale
    Deo Adjuvante non Timendum

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    What picture?

    Must have been the work content filter
    Last edited by G4Z; 25-01-2008 at 01:41 AM.
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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    SOC GEN ROGUE TRADER:STORY FROM THE INSIDE:

    FRIENDS of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel last night blamed his $7 billion losses on unbearable levels of stress brought on by a punishing 30 hour week.

    Kerviel hid his November losses in a batch of wonderfully fresh croissant

    Kerviel was known to start work as early as nine in the morning and still be at his desk at five or even five-thirty, often with just an hour and a half for lunch.

    One colleague said: "He was, how you say, une workaholique. I have a family and a mistress so I would leave the office at around 2pm at the latest, if I wasn't on strike.

    "But Jerome was tied to that desk. One day I came back to the office at 3pm because I had forgotten my stupid little hat and there he was, fast asleep on the photocopier.

    "At first I assumed i was going to discipline, but then I remembered he had been working for almost six hours."

    As the losses mounted, Kerviel tried to conceal his bad trades by covering them with an intense red wine sauce, later switching to delicate pastry horns.

    At one point he managed to dispose of dozens of tranactions by hiding them inside vol-au-vent cases and staging a fake reception.

    Last night a spokesman for Sócíété Générálé denied that Kerviel was over worked.

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    It's tough for those French - a gruelling regime of work work work, with more days per year lost to national holidays and strikes than anywhere else in Europe. Pass the wine.

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    Quote Originally Posted by M0nkeyb0Y View Post
    FRIENDS of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel last night blamed his $7 billion losses on unbearable levels of stress brought on by a punishing 30 hour week.
    LMAO - 30 hour week punishing.

    If that is the case then I'm suing for my human-rights abusing average of at least 39.25 hours.

    I've heard the french loved Whine - Does he want some cheese with his?

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    monkeyboy - where was that article from? it is very comical!
    Last edited by usxhe190; 25-01-2008 at 01:32 PM.

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    HEXUS FOLDING TEAM It's EASY

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    ah daily mash, I had no idea - the sterilised version I posted was emailed to me at work

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    I still cant belive no one suspected anything/there werent any proper safeguards in place to stop this sort of thing happening!

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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    To be honest its all rather suspect.

    I work for a investment bank and our traders all have set limits on positions they hold. Also their positions / P+L should be transparent to colleagues/admins rather than someone having to dig it all up after it has happened. I can only think that their system has loop holes that were found by either him or he had help from someone with trader admin authority.

    Sure there is allot more to this that will become apparent as the investigation unravels, especially seeing as his actions could arguably have contributed to the drop in equity markets across the world and the fed performing a emergency cut in interest rates.

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    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    Re: £3.5 billion fraud ....... ooops!

    What I heard on CNN, was that h knew when inspections were going to happen, knew what they would be looking at and so was able to coer things up temporarily to pass those inspections.

    or something like that anyway.

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