French court upholds rogue trader Jerome Kerviel jail sentence

2014-03-19 11:01:04

(MENAFN- AFP) A top French appeals court on Wednesday upheld rogue trader Jerome Kerviel's three-year jail sentence over high-risk trading that cost the Societe Generale bank nearly five billion euros ($7 billion).But the court cancelled the 4.9 billion euros in damages that Kerviel was ordered to pay, and referred this part of the ex-trader's sentence to another court near Paris for review.Kerviel's lawyer Patrice Spinosi had argued in February while appealing the conviction for breach of trust that Societe Generale had committed "wilful misconduct" and was aware of his client's high-risk trading.Kerviel was sentenced to three years in prison in October 2010 for breach of trust, forgery and entering false data for unauthorised deals that threatened to bankrupt the bank, one of the biggest in Europe.

Spinosi said Wednesday's decision to send the ruling on damages for judgement again would effectively amount to Societe Generale going on trial."It's a victory," said David Koubbi, another of Kerviel's lawyers. But Jean Veil, the lawyer for Societe Generale, said Kerviel "has lost the case."The controversial trader was not present in court. He had recently finished a gruelling protest trek from Rome to Paris to highlight the "tyranny of the markets."He had met with Pope Francis in the Vatican during the pontiff's weekly general audience on February 19 before starting out on the 1,400-kilometre (870 mile) trek.

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