Heads set to roll over trading scandal at French bank
The fate of top executives at French savings bank Caisse d'Epargne hung in the balance Sunday over huge losses in a trading scandal that President Nicolas Sarkozy said were unacceptable.
Caisse d'Epargne, considered one of France's most trustworthy banks, lost 600 million euros (800 million dollars) in high-risk derivatives trading last week at a time when European governments were scrambling to rescue banks.
A meeting of the supervisory board was called for later Sunday to decide whether bank chairman Charles Milhaud and other top executives would be ask to step down.
"Yes I do feel responsible," Milhaud told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper. "Believe me, this incident is serious and is profoundly upsetting for me."
The scandal revived memories of the disaster at another French bank, Societe Generale, which lost 4.9 billion euros in unauthorised deals allegedly made by junior trader Jerome Kerviel.
Milhaud, 65, said he first learned of a 100-million-euro loss on derivatives last Monday and that he had asked traders to quickly unwind those deals after concluding that the bank stood to lose much more.
Comments