Sometimes, we are totally shocked and we may not even believe ourselves.

Well. I felt exactly so when I came to know the details of punishment awarded to the SocGen’s rogue trader Jerome Kerviel by the French Court.

This is the first time, I believe, such a massive (?) punishment was awarded in a case involving financial crimes.

But this shock and disbelief slowly waned when I started reading the details of the judgment.

Well. I may tend to agree with the judgment now for reasons I gather now

-          This RD almost brought the bank to a near collapse

-          He did not have an iota of regret for his wrong doings

-          Banks’ foundation rest on integrity and that seems to be amiss in this RD

-          Even before he could get away from the trial and judgment, he has started finalizing arrangements for commercializing his experiences

-          Thus he brought huge loss for the bank, generated a lot of negative publicity for the bank and at the same, he was trying to cash in on the losses he brought for the bank for his personal gain,

Now, I do entirely agree with the judgment.

Earlier in May 2010, I wrote a blog on ‘Greediness and lax supervision is a dangerous combination in banks’ in this column. I shared my thoughts that there might have been supervisory laxity in SocGen too.

I believe SocGen would pursue this happening further from laxity angle and take appropriate actions against those who did not perform what they were expected to perform – ‘protecting the interest of the bank’

Well. Bad luck once again struck Jerome. He tried to copy Nick Leeson of our Barring Bank. Jerome could have waited for the court judgment, served a couple of years in the prison and then come out with his plans on commercializing his ‘adventure’ (or misadventure) with SocGen the way Nick successfully implemented.

Who knows? Jerome could have been tripped and misled on the commercialization proposals to ensure that he does not avail of this opportunity at any point of time.