Rogue Trader Rocks SocGen

Societe Generale announced today that a rogue trader had undertaken "exceptional fraud" resulting in losses of $7.14 billion.According to the bank, the trader had taken "massive fraudulent directional positions" trading plain vanilla futures hedging European equity market indices in 2007 and 2008.

The trader also was said to have inside knowledge of the firm's risk control procedures after working in middle office positions at SocGen prior to trading.

The SocGen trader's losses would top the losses racked up by Nick Leeson, the Barings rogue trader who took down the bank with derivatives losses around $1.3 billion.

For more on the facts behind the fraud, see AT's sister publication Wall Street & Technology's coverage.