Topic: Jerome Kerviel

Jérôme Kerviel (French pronunciation: ; born 11 January 1977) is a French trader who has a pending appeal of his conviction in the January 2008 Société Générale trading loss incident for breach of trust, forgery and unauthorized use of the bank's computers, resulting in losses valued at €4.9 billion. Société Générale characterizes Kerviel as a rogue trader and claims Kerviel worked these trades alone and without its authorization. These assertions have been met with skepticism by some of Kerviel's former colleagues and acquaintances, as well as by some members of the news media. Kerviel had told investigators that his trading behavior was widespread at the company and that getting a profit makes the hierarchy turn a blind eye. Kerviel published a book in May 2010, L'engrenage: Mémoires d’un Trader (Downward spiral: Memoirs of a Trader), in which he alleges that his superiors knew of his trading activities, and that the practice was very common.

Jérôme Kerviel grew up in Pont-l'Abbé, Brittany. His mother, Marie-Josée, is a retired hairdresser and his father, Charles, who died in 2006, was a blacksmith. Kerviel has an older brother, Olivier. Kerviel is married, but he and his wife recently separated.

He graduated in 2000 from University Lumière Lyon 2 with a Master of Finance specializing in organization and control of financial markets. The university's financial program, which was initiated in the 1990s with the support of France's larger banks, was intended to prepare students for middle and back-office positions in the trading departments of financial institutions. Prior to that he received a bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of Nantes.