His former employer – grobbank societe generale – has to prove that it was unaware of its ex-employee’s years of high-risk speculation. Under heavy media scrutiny, kerviel, now 35, answered questions at the start of the proceedings about an internal code of ethics he signed when he was hired.
"To be completely honest with you: i didn’t read it at the time – but yes: i did sign it," he said, according to the AFP news agency. He then admitted that he had exceeded the limits allowed for the eight traders in his department, which totaled 125 million euros. However, he considered this amount to be more of an informal guideline. He admitted a mistake and said with regard to the speculated sum: "that was indeed extravagant."He does not know whether other traders acted similarly to him in exceeding the limits.
Kerviel had appealed against a ruling at the end of 2010 that sentenced him to five years in prison – two of them on probation – and the repayment of 4.9 billion euros to his ex-employer. His employer at the time, the french bank societe generale, had incurred losses of almost five billion euros in 2008 and blamed this on unauthorized speculation by kerviel.
Before the start of the trial of. He had declared that he had always acted with the knowledge of his superiors. Kerviel has also filed two complaints against grobbank for allegedly manipulating sound recordings for the trial. They were recorded without kerviel’s knowledge and subsequently shortened. In addition, she had concealed in the first trial that she had made up for part of her loss. The bank responded with two counterclaims for slander. After the scandal, the french major banks said they had learned lessons from the affair and taken measures to prevent similar cases in the future. A verdict is expected in late summer at the earliest.