Jerome Kerviel a former trader at Societe General owes more money than any other person in the world.
Jerome was a junior trader at the bank that can trace its lineage back to 1864 where its authorization decree was signed by Napoleon the Third. He was convicted of creating fictitious trades to hide €50billion ($6.4 billion) in unauthorized trades during late 2007 and early 2008. Societe General closed out the unauthorized positions in January 2008, but in doing so lost over $6 billion. The bank has been pursuing Jerome for those losses through the French courts.
Kerviel’s future is uncertain. He has been convicted in Paris, and a recent appeal has not gone well. The written judgment stated: “Jerome Kerviel was the sole creator, inventor and user of a fraudulent system that caused these damages to Societe Generale,”
As well as facing a three-year jail sentence, Kerviel’s appeal effort to overturn the original 2010 ruling has failed, meaning that he must pay back $6.3 billion in losses to the bank.