SocGen encouraged risks which led to losses: Kerviel

PARIS: Jerome Kerviel, the trader blamed by Societe Generale SA for a 4.9 billion-euro ($6.4 billion) trading loss, said in a television interview that his superiors encouraged him to take risks and that he isn���t sure if he���s really responsible for such a large loss. ���There���s no proof that the loss is due entirely to my positions,��� he said in an interview on TF1. ���It���s just the bank that says so.���

Kerviel���s appearance on TF1, the country���s most-watched station, comes as two Paris judges prepare a report that could lead to a trial on charges that he violated his duty to the bank and hacked into its computers. If convicted, he faces as much as 5 years in prison and a 375,000-euro fine.

In the 10-minute interview, he said the judges haven���t fully dissected Societe Generale���s trading accounts, which he said would show that the bank was aware that he was frequently exceeding his trading limits. ���I recognized my errors from the start,��� he said. ���I thought that by telling the investigators where to go to find the truth, they would go. But they didn���t want to go. I will fight to the end.���

Societe Generale says it discovered the 32-year-old trader���s unhedged positions on January 19, 2008, and unwound them over three days, resulting in the losses, the largest trading losses ever announced by a bank.

Judges leading the investigation closed their probe last month after 38 meetings with the former trader and are preparing a report for prosecutors on whether he should stand trial.

After avoiding journalists for the first year after he became one of France���s best known personalities, he has given interviews in the past two weeks to a newspaper, a radio station, and now a television station. Stephanie Carson-Parker, a spokeswoman for Societe Generale, declined to comment on the interview.