He’s not getting paid and he’s been told not to show up at his desk at Société Générale—but allegedly rogue trader Jerome Kerviel still has his job at the French bank, according to the Wall Street Journal. The situation arises from a unique and glorious meeting of French employment law and an order from the French judge in his case.
Unlike Wall Street, where employees can typically be fired at a moment’s notice, French law requires that the bank must explain it’s decision to fire him at a sit-down meeting arranged in advance. Kerviel is permitted to bring along a union representative, a lawyer or even his mom. The judge in the case, however, has forbidden Kerviel from having any contact with the bank. So it seems that until this order is lifted, Kerviel will keep his job and Soc Gen will remain the bank that continues to employ the guy who lost them billions. (Now that we think about this it does kind of remind us of Wall Street—or at least Bear Stearns.)
Let’s focus for a moment on this order from the French judge. It has been fueling speculation that authorities fear that Soc Gen may be attempting to use Kerviel as a ‘fall guy’ in the case, and that contact between them might serve to allow them to conspire together. In short, they may be being kept apart like murder suspects in a police procedural. Which is to say, it looks like Soc Gen remains a suspect in the case.
In a French Twist, Infamous Trader Gets Hero Treatment [New York Post]
Posted by Fat Gay Guy, Feb 01, 2008 10:25AM
Soc Gen is as guilty as Filomena