Employee shareholders at Societe Generale said yesterday they had started legal action following a multibillion-dollar rogue trader scandal at the French bank.
Employees and former employees, represented by the association ASSACT SG, form the bank's largest shareholder, holding around 10 percent of its capital and more than 10 percent of voting rights.
The association said it was "its duty to contribute to shedding light on the recent disappointment of which all Societe Generale shareholders are victim, notably employees and former employees."
"We are filing suit because we want to be kept informed of the affair's progress," said its head Patrice Leclerc, criticizing a "lack of transparency due to the fact Societe Generale staff are not represented on the board."
Leclerc stressed his association did not want to single out rogue trader Jerome Kerviel, who is being investigated over the losses of 4.8 billion euros (US$7.1 billion) announced by the bank last Thursday.
But he criticized the fact that around 50 people in the bank's investment division earned more than its chairman, Daniel Bouton.
"These excesses are no guarantee of good management and our members want reason to prevail," he said.
Already, three groups of Societe Generale minority shareholders have filed suit alleging insider trading and manipulation of share prices in relation to two major share sales this month by Societe Generale board member Robert Day.
The French financial regulator AMF said on Tuesday it had opened an investigation into share sales in the days before the rogue trade scandal emerged.
Bouton also faced increasing pressure from French officials to answer for the rogue trader disaster ahead a meeting yesterday of its board of directors.
As questions multiplied over Societe Generale's failure to prevent the disaster, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde stressed on Tuesday it was "up to board members" to decide on Bouton's future.
"Societe Generale is in crisis," she said, adding that "the board members are there to decide whether or not the person in charge is the best one to steer the ship or if a change of captain is needed."
The head of the French Senate finance committee, Jean Arthuis, went further: "I don't think Bouton has any choice but to leave."
Societe Generale's board turned down the 57-year-old Bouton's offer of resignation last week, after the colossal losses were announced, asking him to steer the bank through the crisis.
One of the best paid French executives, with a salary of 3.3 million euros in 2006, Bouton said he would forego six months' pay and reaffirmed on Monday that his offer to resign was still on the table.
But as the French government stepped in to warn market predators away from the crisis-hit bank, seen increasingly as a takeover target, the decision to keep Bouton in place came under scrutiny.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS