France's rogue trader fined £4 billion

They'll be shocked if he says "will you take a cheque guv?" Yes he was wrong but how is he supposed to repay €4bn?

Good for the French!

If he can't pay the 4bn, presumably he'll have a longer jail sentence. At the french taxpayers' expense, no doubt.

What was the Judge thinking about! The Americans were more realistic.

Bernard Madoff, fined nothing, all assets confiscated, and sentenced to 150 years in the slammer.

Why wasn't the bank fined more for its corporate failure to properly monitor employees' activities? This should be a fundamental part of any bank's risk management procedure. £4M is peanuts for this kind of systemic failure.

As for the trader's fine, it may be well deserved but, lets be honest, it is pointless window dressing by the regulator to make the regulator look good without annoying the banks. Sound familiar?

Almost comic... should not the reality have been that,

a. SG should have known what he was doing.

b. SG's controls (did they have any?) should have flagged this much earlier.

c. SG would then have had a limited loss.

The €4bn fine seems about as pointless as madoff's 150 year sentence.

do you think instead of a direct payment, they would take 'double or quits' :) You just know they would!

Another example of the fact that there is mankind and then you have the French.

And who are going to fine the French for failure to properly enforce and regulate the Banks?

The EU? and who fines them for failing to file audited accounts fort 14 years, and oh yes the commissioners, including Pillock for failure the stop, even remotely, control the frauds?

And closer to home, Gordon Brown and his adviser and Bliar et al for the failure to enforce regulation of financial institutions and the ruin they heaped on us.

Let us face it, Brown (not forgetting the Ballses) should be doing about 15 -30 years for the 100s of billions he gambled with and lost?

Now who does the photo above remind you of, our current chancellor?

The basic problem seems to be almost the same as with our Mr LEESON all those years ago. A Trader, given licence to deal, who enjoys the work, becomes self important and boosts his ego with big figures and positions in the market, and most important of all realises that his superior does not understand what he is doing but is most impressed by the 'profits' which seem to arise. A perfect recipe for eventual disaster. The 'Superior' should always know more about the market than the trader -it rarely happens.

Like any other business, it should be made clear from the outset that any mistakes and losses will be dneducted from their salary.