A Paris court put French trader Jerome Kerviel behind bars, while the investigation into billions of dollars of losses he allegedly caused for bank Societe Generale took a new twist as a second employee was brought into custody.
Investigators want to know whether Kerviel acted alone, and if so, how it was that a brokerage employee sent him a message before the scandal broke, saying: "You have done nothing illegal in terms of the law."
The bank, prosecutors and France's finance minister have said that Kerviel appeared to have acted without help when he made massive unauthorized bets on European futures markets that the bank said cost it around US$7 billion to unwind.
The 31-year-old futures trader was sent to La Sante jail outside Paris on Friday, said a judicial official who declined to be named.
The court was concerned that, if left free, Kerviel could have jeopardized what promises to be a long and complex investigation -- by contacting possible accomplices or exerting pressure on witnesses, the official said. The prosecutor's office had urged the court to jail him.
Societe Generale has faced uncertainty over its future since the scandal broke on Jan. 24, as well as questions about how Kerviel's massive trades possibly went unnoticed. The bank has repeatedly said that he did not appear to have accomplices.
But the bank's lawyer, Jean Veil, raised the possibility on Friday that Kerviel only claimed to have acted alone to avoid jail.
Kerviel's lawyer, Elisabeth Meyer, said she planned to appeal, and compared her client's defense against the powerful bank to "David fighting Goliath." Judges had allowed Kerviel to go free last month after Meyer argued he did not pose a flight risk.
The revelation that a second employee was taken into custody on Thursday is a potentially big twist and could add a new layer of complexity to the case if it turns out he was an accomplice.
The employee worked at Newedge, a joint venture between Societe Generale and Calyon bank, another judicial official said.
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said it expects its 2-nanometer (2nm) chip capacity to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from this year to 2028. The projection comes as five fabs begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips this year — two in Hsinchu and three in Kaohsiung — TSMC senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Silicon Valley, California, last week. Output in the first year of 2-nanometer production, which began in the fourth quarter of last year, is expected to
RSS