Jean-Pierre Mustier, SocGen’s former head of investment
banking and the man who called
Jérôme Kerviel a liar, has been fined for insider trading by the French
market regulator.
Just a few weeks ago, Mustier testified
against Kerviel in court:
The bank's former head of investment banking, Jean-Pierre
Mustier, hit back at Kerviel's claims in court that SocGen tolerated
unauthorised trading positions that eventually cost the bank 4.9 billion euros
($6.57 billion) to unwind in 2008.
"You lied to me all along," an animated Mustier
told Kerviel in the cramped courtroom in the Palais de Justice, before telling
judges Kerviel took "inhuman" risks that would be termed
"criminal" in the United States.
The AMF said that Mustier had access to inside information on
potential subprime mortgage-related losses at the bank when he sold 6,000
SocGen shares in late 2007, though it said the shares were a tiny part of the
portfolio he offloaded.
I just finished a series on the Jérôme Kerviel trial, which
ended on Friday in Paris. You can
work backwards from the last post by starting here.
Also, the FSA has
fined Steven Perkins, a former oil futures broker at the London-based PVM
brokerage, £72,000 ($108,000) and banned him from the industry for five years. Perkins caused a significant oil price
spike by making unauthorized trades from home of more than $500m in Brent crude
oil on June 29 and 30, 2009, after a weekend of heavy drinking.
According to the FSA, “Mr Perkins’ account … is that he
was drunk and was in an alcohol induced blackout.”
Perkins’ unauthorized trading was
discovered last year:
The Financial Times is reporting that Tuesday’s spike in oil
prices to their highest level this year was caused by a rogue broker who placed
a large bet in the Brent oil market, triggering almost $10m (€7m) of losses for
PVM Oil Associates, the world’s largest over-the-counter oil brokerage. During
one hour, prices rose from $71 to $73.5, while futures contracts for more than
16 million barrels were traded (as compared to the average of 500,000 barrels
for that time of the day).