Evil eye

24 January 2008 By Richard Beales Follow @richardbeales1

Cover stories often come before a fall ask Time about its 1999 choice of Amazon.com s Jeff Bezos as person of the year as the internet boom peaked, or Business Week s Enron story in early 2001. In hindsight, SocGen s run of equity derivatives awards were ominous, too.

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Société Générale said on January 24 it had suffered E4.9bn of losses on "fraudulent and concealed positions". The rogue trader's name, Jerome Kerviel, was later revealed.

Risk magazine said in a blog post later the same day that its most recent award to SocGen "was given on the basis of SG's innovation in derivatives in 2007". The magazine added that " while the losses will (and should) put the spotlight on the bank's compliance and oversight, they should not condemn the entire equity derivatives team".

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