Soc Gen trader to be comic star
As his assistant is charged, Jérôme Kerviel, implicated in the loss of €5billion, is the subject of a graphic novel.
The Société Générale trader who lost €5 billion, Jérôme Kerviel, is to star in a graphic novel.
Out next month le Journal de Jérôme Kerviel tells the story in the first person.
Editor Xavier Thomas of publisher Thomas Editions said: “We were gobsmacked by the astronomical sums involved.
“We decided to make fun of it, while keeping in mind the way stock markets works,” he said.
The 40-page book, written by Lorentz and illustrated by Nicolas Million, will have an initial print run of 5,000 and is out in September.
Investigators examining the affair have charged Kerviel’s assistant Thomas Mougard, 24, with "complicity to introduce false data into a computer system".
He is only the second person to be charged in the scandal.
Judges accuse him of "knowingly helping Jerome Kerviel to record fictitious operations" at the bank in 2007 and January 2008.
The €5 billion losses were incurred as Société Générale unwound more than €50 billion of unauthorised deals Kerviel is said to have made.
Kerviel handed himself to police on January 26, two days after the bank revealed the losses.
On January 28 he was charged with breach of trust, fabricating documents and illegally accessing computers.
Kerviel, who is on bail, insists his managers knew of his dealings but kept silent as long as he was making good returns.
France's banking regulator has fined Société Générale €4 million and issued a formal warning to the bank for "grave deficiencies" in its internal controls.
Image: Book cover copyright Thomas Editions
