Reformas no Estado em máximos da troika

[pvg80713]

sim, mas parece que o ajudante administrativo de trading, teve ajuda de um qualquer subordinado.
Se calhar serviu-lhe um café.

Ainda estava à espera que fosse a Al-Qaeda ou que ele estivesse a soldo da Goldman... ou pior... que a queda da Bear Stearns tivesse que ver com isto... mas não... parece que afinal, pode haver dois traders sem qualquer controlo na SG... porreiro pá... fico mais descansado.

[Pata-Hari]

Concordo, seria muito complicado ter acesso a tudo o que ele teve sem que alguém tivesse, no mínimo, fechado os olhos.

[Scubawarrior]

É impossivel acontecer algo parecido sem que várias pessoas estejam directamente envolvidas. E muitas outras de forma indirecta.

Tenho a certeza disso desde o dia que td isto foi anunciado.

Bjs Pata e obr pelo apanhado,

[Pata-Hari]

do herald tribune

Societe Generale investigators suspect Kerviel got help in trades behind huge bank loss

The Associated Press
Friday, May 23, 2008
PARIS: Investigators at Societe Generale SA say they suspect former futures trader Jerome Kerviel was helped by an assistant to cover up massive trading positions that led to a multibillion euro (dollar) loss.

In two long-awaited reports released Friday, the investigators said the French bank's management failures and culture of risk-taking were partly to blame for failing to spot the positions, which led to a loss of almost €5 billion (over US$7 billion) once they were unwound.

The reports detail the extent of Kerviel's alleged fraud in a scandal that broke out in January and has sullied the reputation of the glamorous trading desk at the award-winning bank.

Investigators say Kerviel's bosses missed more than 1,000 faked trades; a huge jump in his earnings in 2007; questions about his trades from the Eurex exchange; unusually high levels of cash flow, accounting anomalies, and high brokerage expenses; Kerviel's failure to take vacation; and his breach of the desk's market risk limit on one position.

"The trader's hierarchy, constituting the first level of control, proved deficient in the supervision of his activities," said the board of directors in a seven-page statement to shareholders accompanying the reports.

The reports said Kerviel's direct superior "lacked trading experience" and showed "an inappropriate degree of tolerance" about his trades. The bank did not name the superior, who they said they have been unable to question because he no longer works for the company.

The reports also criticized the manager of the company's Delta One trading desk, who they said was aware of the lack of experience of Kerviel's manager, and "deficiencies in the monitoring of risks by the desk in general."

One report was led by a committee of three board directors, the other by audit firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. They were published ahead of next Tuesday's annual shareholder meeting.

The 69-report by the directors said that they had "discovered indications of internal collusion involving a trading assistant," whom they declined to identify. They said they were unable to speak to the assistant because of an ongoing judicial probe, adding that it will be up to the court to confirm its suspicions.

However, they said they had uncovered an e-mail which suggested that the assistant must have known about the fake trades.

The assistant's complicity would have helped Kerviel avoid being uncovered, the directors' report said.

Previously, Societe Generale had said it believed that Kerviel acted alone.

But while he had help from a junior colleague, the internal report found that "neither JK's hierarchical superiors, nor his colleagues, were aware of the fraudulent mechanisms used or the size of his positions."

Kerviel says his superiors must have known what he was doing but that they chose to look the other way when he was making money for the bank.

"We notice that while protecting the superiors of Jerome Kerviel, the Societe Generale has found a new scapegoat — who just happens to be a 23-year-old assistant," said Guillaume Selnet, a lawyer for Kerviel.

He noted that the directors' report was prepared by the bank's own services and insisted that SocGen's version of events keeps changing. The bank issued a preliminary investigation into the scandal in February.

"My feeling is that — we are now on the second report — by the third report it's going to be the fault of the cleaning ladies," he added. "Each time it goes down (the corporate hierarchy), instead of up."

SocGen employee Patrice Leclerc, who heads an association of the bank's employee shareholders, said Kerviel's managers need to explain why they missed warning signals that were picked up in Germany — and why they didn't follow up on questions from Eurex, the German derivatives exchange.

"There exists ways of monitoring this type of thing — why weren't they used?" he said.

Investigators didn't find any signs of embezzlement by Kerviel, but said it appeared that he had sought to boost his results, and thus increase the amount of bonus he could hope for. The report established that part of Kerviel's "official" earnings came from his concealed positions.

While the directors' report plumbed the details of the alleged fraud, the 36-page report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers focused on the culture of risk-taking at the bank as it grew its investment banking business and on a review of the measures taken by the bank to fix the problems that the scandal exposed.

"The surge in Delta One trading volumes and profits was accompanied by the emergence of unauthorized practices, with limits regularly exceeded and results smoothed or transferred between traders," the PWC report said.

"Several key controls that could have identified fraudulent mechanisms were lacking" and "there was a lack of an appropriate awareness of the risk of fraud," it said.

The report will be "good news for the lawyers" who are preparing a class action in the U.S. as it spreads the blame, according to Stephane Bonifassi, a French lawyer and a member of the FraudNet network, which operates under the International Chamber of Commerce's commercial crime unit.

For Kerviel, "the fact that his hierarchy was a bit laid back will help him."

SocGen's board said in a statement to shareholders it approved the conclusions of both reports and their recommendations.

The board said the investment bank is tightening computer security, reinforcing controls and taking more account of the possibility of fraud.

Deeper reforms, such as the creation of a team dedicated to preventing fraud, "significant investments in security for information technology," and a campaign to raise staff awareness have been launched and will be completed by 2010, the board said.

The independent directors in charge of the report are former auto executive Jean-Martin Folz, Jean Azema, head of insurer Groupama, and Antoine Jeancout-Galignani, a director of real estate company Gecina SA.

The case is also being investigated by France's market authority, the country's banking commission and a French court.

Societe Generale cites lax management in $7B fraud

The Associated Press
Friday, May 23, 2008
PARIS: Investigators at Societe Generale said Friday they suspect a former futures trader had help as he tried to cover up unauthorized positions that led to billions in losses at the French bank.

In two long-awaited reports, the investigators said the French bank's management failures and culture of risk-taking were partly to blame for failing to uncover the alleged fraud, which led to a loss of almost 5 billion euros (over $7 billion).

"The trader's hierarchy, constituting the first level of control, proved deficient in the supervision of his activities," said the board of directors in a statement to shareholders accompanying the reports.

It also said former trader Jerome Kerviel's direct superior "lacked trading experience" showed "an inappropriate degree of tolerance" for Kerviel's trading activity.

The findings came in two separate internal reports — one led by a committee of independent directors headed by former auto executive Jean-Martin Folz, the other by audit firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The report from the directors said that they had "discovered indications of internal collusion involving a trading assistant," who they declined to identify. They said they were unable to speak to the person because of an ongoing judicial probe, adding that it will be up to the court to confirm its suspicions.

However, they said they had uncovered an e-mail which suggested that the assistant must have known about the fake trades.

The assistant's complicity would have helped Kerviel avoid detection, the report said.

Previously, Societe Generale had said it believed that Kerviel acted alone.

The internal report said it found that "neither JK's hierarchical superiors, nor his colleagues, were aware of the fraudulent mechanisms used or the size of his positions."

Kerviel says his superiors must have known what he was doing, but that they chose to look the other way when he was making money for the bank.

Investigators didn't find any signs of embezzlement by Kerviel, but said it appeared that he had sought to boost his results, and thus increase his bonuses.

The internal report said supervision of Kerviel was weak and management failed to react to a series of red flags

The report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers cited a culture of risk-taking at the bank as it grew its investment banking business. Trading limits were often surpassed, the report said.

Control systems were missing and procedures were lacking, that report said.

SocGen's board said in a statement it approved the conclusions of the report and its recommendations.

Societe Generale SA has said it is tightening computer security, reinforcing controls and taking more account of the possibility of fraud since the affair was uncovered.

SocGen says rogue trader Kerviel may have had help
By Sudip Kar-Gupta
Reuters
Friday, May 23, 2008
PARIS: Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel may have had internal help when he built up massive stock market bets that led to the world's worst trading scandal, a report published by the French bank said on Friday.

The report also blamed weak supervision and poor control systems for the rogue trading scandal which shook the world's banking establishment earlier this year.

The internal report said Kerviel, the junior trader blamed by France's second-biggest bank for $7.7 billion (3.88 billion pounds) in trading losses, may have been helped by an assistant but added there was no conclusive proof of this.

"We have discovered indications of internal collusion involving a trading assistant, a middle office operational agent," said the report.

"Due to the current on-going criminal investigation, we have been unable to question this employee on this subject. The possibility of such internal collusion must therefore be confirmed by the courts," it added.

The bank has consistently said Kerviel acted alone.

The internal report, the second published by SocGen into the debacle, said the unidentified assistant had manually entered a large number of fraudulent transactions done by Kerviel.

It said the assistant registered "several abnormally high intra-monthly provision flows, without having obtained any valid explanations as to their validity."

It added that the assistant had registered a total of almost 15 percent of Kerviel's fictitious trades.

MANAGEMENT BLAMED

On Jan 24, SocGen unveiled 4.9 billion euros (3.9 billion pounds) of losses which it said were caused by rogue deals carried out by Kerviel.

Kerviel was freed from prison in March after an appeal against his detention but he remains under formal investigation for breach of trust, computer abuse and falsification.

A previous report by SocGen had investigated how Kerviel managed to build up a trading position of 50 billion euros - more than the stock market value of SocGen -- without getting noticed by his managers.

SocGen had highlighted Kerviel's habit of doing rogue deals on warrants with a deferred start date, futures contracts and "forwards" deals using a counterparty within SocGen itself.

The latest report on Friday said Kerviel's direct supervisors lacked the relevant experience for their job.

"The direct supervisor lacked trading experience and was not given a sufficient degree of support in his new role," it added.

The report also said Kerviel's supervisor "demonstrated an inappropriate degree of tolerance in relation to the taking of intraday directional positions".

It said both Kerviel's direct supervisor and the manager above them carried out inadequate reviews of Kerviel's trading activities. The report did not name these individuals.

SocGen did not find out about Kerviel's unauthorised trades until January 18, even though internal reports from the bank showed that Kerviel had in 2007 raised alarms with derivatives exchange Eurex and been the subject of more than 70 "alert" warnings.

The bank's report said Eurex raised an alarm in November when Kerviel bought 6,000 DAX share futures contracts worth 1.2 billion euros, betting on a broad rise in share prices, in just two hours.

The losses from the Kerviel scandal have made SocGen vulnerable to a takeover bid and forced the bank to raise 5.5 billion euros in capital to shore up its finances.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also criticised SocGen's executive chairman Daniel Bouton over the affair. Bouton recently gave up his chief executive position to former SocGen finance director Frederic Oudea.

SocGen shares closed down 1.5 percent at 66.75 euros, giving the bank a stock market value of around 31 billion euros.

(Editing by Sue Thomas)