PARIS - French prosecutors are seeking charges against the assistant of Jerome Kerviel, the Societe Generale rogue trader accused of causing multi-billion-euro losses at the bank, officials said Thursday.
The Paris prosecutor's office has asked investigating judges to charge the assistant, a man in his early 20s whose name has not been released, with "complicity to introduce false data into a computer system," according to officials close to the investigation.
Judges are not obliged to follow the prosecutor's recommendations.
The assistant has been questioned several times before in connection with the mammoth losses at Societe Generale, as an "assisted witness", a legal status half way between a simple witness and being charged.
Kerviel, 31, has been the only person charged over the biggest rogue trade scandal in banking history and charges against his assistant could signal a turning point in the case, a source said.
Investigators have been trying to unearth if the trader acted alone or if he had help inside or outside the bank.
The bank itself has tried to portray Kerviel as acting alone, but a Societe Generale internal report that was made public in May uncovered "signs of internal complicity" from the assistant trader.
The report underscores that "nearly 15 percent of the fictitious transactions recorded for Jerome Kerviel were from his assistant".
It also revealed a December 2007 email in which the assistant wrote about Kerviel's 1.4 billion euros (2.2 billion dollars) worth of transactions, thereby suggesting he "had knowledge of the result" of the fraud.
Kerviel, on the other hand, told the judge his assistant -- who claims he believed in the "underlying" economic function of his tasks -- was only carrying out instructions.
People close to Kerviel have said his superiors were aware of the non-authorised transactions, but were exonerated by the bank.
Since the scandal broke, Societe Generale has tried to first link another trader as an accomplice in the fraud, and now Kerviel's assistant.
Kerviel denies he was trying to harm his employer and said he only "wanted to make money for Societe Generale".
One of France's big three banks, Societe Generale shocked the financial world when it announced in January staggering losses of 4.9 billion euros at the hands of a rogue trader.
The bank incurred the colossal losses when it was forced to unwind more than 50 billion euros of unauthorised deals Kerviel is said to have made.
Kerviel turned himself in to police on January 26, two days after the bank revealed the losses, and on January 28 was charged with breach of trust, fabricating documents and illegally accessing computers.
A source close to the case said the implication of an accomplice would lend credence to a premeditated crime.
pr-mra/cld/gk
07/03/2008 19:33 GMT