Thursday, February 14, 2008

Societe Generale Investigations Continue Into Stock Fraud

Caught in the Headlights: Jerome Kerviel, French securities trader who racked up $73.6 Bn in uncovered trading positions.



The law firm of Finkelstein Thompson LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors who may have put their money in American Depositary Shares ("ADS") of Societe Generale. A previous story in this website revealed how France’s largest bank, Societe Generale, issued a statement publicly revealing for the first time that it had uncovered a fraud.
One of the Company's traders, Jerome Kerviel, ran a staggering 50 billion euro ($73.63 billion) position on European equity index futures contracts. Kerviel falsified documents and used stolen computer access codes to build up his unhedged positions.
When Soc Gen found out about the massive vulnerability, it hid the rogue trader’s activities until they could undo part of the damage. Even so billions of dollars lost was the BIGGEST IN BANKING HISTORY. U.S. investors saw their investment in the Soc Gen’s American Depository Shares (ADS) dwindle by 23%.
Societe Generale didn’t tell any of its outside investors the bad news until it was too late. There are indications that the bank was informed of “suspicious” trading activity in November 2007. That was plenty of time for Soc Gen’s Robert Day to dump about $100 million Euros in Soc Gen investments. Financial analysts think all this security dumping added to and even catalyzed the panic and downward pressure of Wall Street’s plunge.
Impecunious ripped off investors who read this and need to have representation in claims against Soc Gen can call Finkelstein Thompson at (877) 337-1050.

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