Kerviel lawyers seek hearing with SocGen chairman
PARIS, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Lawyers for Jerome Kerviel, who was blamed by French bank Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) for a trading scandal that cost it billions of euros, said they were seeking a showdown with SocGen Chairman Daniel Bouton.
"We have asked for a hearing with Daniel Bouton," Bernard Benaiem, Kerviel's main lawyer, said on Wednesday.
Kerviel earlier attended a hearing with magistrates as part of the ongoing investigation into the SocGen trading loss, the world's worst rogue trading scandal.
Asked by reporters how he felt, Kerviel replied: "I am very well."
On Jan. 24, SocGen unveiled 4.9 billion euros ($6.2 billion) of losses which it said were caused by unauthorised deals carried out by Kerviel, a 31-year-old junior trader at the bank.
Kerviel was freed from prison in March after an appeal against his detention, but he remains under formal investigation for breach of trust, computer abuse and falsification.
The losses at SocGen eclipsed those from previous scandals, such as Nick Leeson's rogue trades that toppled British merchant bank Barings in 1995.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy had heavily criticised Bouton over the losses and made veiled calls for him to resign.
Kerviel has admitted building up non-authorised trading positions but says his supervisors must have been aware of what he was doing.
Public interest in the case has remained high as the world financial crisis has deepened in recent months, with French prosecutors probing a 750 million euro loss at mutual bank Groupe Caisse d'Epargne last month.
Kerviel has been hailed as an anti-establishment hero in certain French circles, and left-wing newspaper Liberation devoted its front page to him earlier this week.
SocGen has published several internal reports into the Kerviel affair.
These show that he managed to bypass control systems to start building up non-authorised trading positions in 2005 and 2006 for "small amounts." These amounts became progressively bigger from March 2007.
By the time SocGen discovered what was going on in late January, Kerviel had amassed a position worth 49 billion euros -- greater than SocGen's own stock market value.
SocGen decided to unwind this position between Jan. 21 and Jan. 23 into a stock market that was already falling sharply due to fears over the global economy and the credit crisis. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Richard Hubbard)
