PARIS (AFP)--French trader Jerome Kerviel can expect to carry the can for the biggest rogue trading scandal in history, it emerged Tuesday, after investigators rejected claims that bosses knew of his high-risk dealings.
Kerviel and a suspected accomplice, his assistant Thomas Mougard, have been charged over the staggering derivatives trading losses of EUR4.9 billion announced by the Societe Generale SA (13080.FR) bank in January.
The losses were incurred when the bank was forced to unwind more than EUR50 billion of unauthorized deals Kerviel is said to have made. The trader has insisted his managers knew of his dealings and kept silent as long as he was making good returns.
But in a series of rulings made last week, French magistrates heading the pretrial investigation turned down defense requests for an additional probe to establish whether the bank turned a blind eye to his actions.
"It is clear, based on the elements gathered by the investigation, that the various alerts did not allow the banks' internal control systems to detect the exorbitant positions that Kerviel had taken, and which he had taken care to conceal with fictitious operations," the judges argued.
In the rulings, seen by AFP, the judges refuse to bring Kerviel face-to-face with Societe Generale's former chief executive, Daniel Bouton, at a hearing to compare their versions of events. They also reject defense claims the investigation relied too closely on documents provided by Societe Generale.
Kerviel is charged with breach of trust, fabricating documents and illegally accessing computers over the rogue trade scandal. Mougard, accused of helping him record fictitious bank operations, was charged in August with "complicity to introduce false data into a computer system."
Both have remained free pending trial, for which no date has yet been set.
Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http://www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=%2BMcNpk7BTRKDnX6TXbKO2A%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 09, 2008 07:43 ET (12:43 GMT)

Publié le 09 Décembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones