SocGen Had Been Warned About Kerviel:
"Prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin, who announced the filing of attempted-fraud charges against Kerviel, told reporters the derivatives exchange Eurex had alerted SocGen last November about questionable trades by Kerviel. Separately, several of the bank's internal control units also had flagged some of his trades in recent months, Marin said. But in each instance, he said, Kerviel was able to produce 'fake documents' making it appear that the trades were hedged and therefore not risky.
Marin said Kerviel had admitted falsifying documents and hacking into the bank's computer system to cover up unauthorized trades he began making in 2005, when he first moved from SocGen's back office to the trading floor. His motivation, the prosecutor said, was to 'seem like an exceptional trader,' and he had been expecting a bonus of almost $450,000—far above his base salary of about $147,000—based on profitable trades he made in 2007, before he began running up huge losses in recent weeks. Kerviel also told investigators that other traders routinely made unauthorized trades, Marin said.
In its most detailed public explanation of the scandal to date, SocGen acknowledged on Jan. 27 that the trading positions taken by Kerviel had reached more than $73 billion, far exceeding the bank's roughly $50 billion market capitalization...."
