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).
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