Société Générale

One of France's three largest banks, founded 1864; its Delta One desk in Paris was the vehicle for Jérôme Kerviel's trades.

Vehicle and victim: the bank's controls let a junior trader build €50B of hidden index-futures positions behind fake hedges; unwinding them cost €4.9B in January 2008.

Société Générale was founded in 1864 and by 2007 was one of France's biggest banks, with a large equity-derivatives arm. Jérôme Kerviel joined its middle office in 2000, moved to the Delta One desk in 2005 and from 2007 built unauthorised bets on European index futures — about €50 billion by January 2008, more than the bank's own market value — hidden behind fictitious offsetting trades and forged emails. Controls flagged an anomaly on 18 January 2008; the bank unwound the positions into a falling market and announced a €4.9 billion loss on 24 January. The regulator fined the bank €4 million for its control failures; Kerviel was convicted in 2010 and eventually ordered to pay €1 million.

Fined €4M by France's Commission Bancaire (July 2008) for serious control failures. Kerviel was convicted in October 2010; the €4.9B damages award against him was annulled by the Cour de cassation in 2014 and reset at €1M by the Versailles Court of Appeal (September 2016). A labour tribunal briefly found his dismissal unfair (2016; reversed 2018). The bank received a €1.7B tax deduction on the loss, later questioned by the state.