The world's most famous rogue trader is about to have his encounter with the criminal justice system. Jerome Kerviel, made famous by transactions he made while a trader at Societe Generale, will go to trial.

He's been charged with forgery, breach of trust and unauthorized computer use. If the French legal system finds him guilty, he could spend up to five years in prison and face a fine of up to €375,000.

Kerviel allegedly made unauthorized trades that cost SocGen more than €5 billion. The losses -- and underlying activity -- came to light in January 2008 as one of the largest trading losses ever to be sustained.

When the news first broke that low-level rogue trader Jerome Kerviel had racked up $7 billion in unauthorized trading losses, many people were puzzled. What was his motive? How had he gotten away with it? Mr. Kerviel was believed to have acted alone, but did he really?

Now The New York Times is reporting that French police have arrested Manuel Zabraniecki in connection with the case. We're wondering what his role in this disaster might have been and, perhaps more interestingly, what possible motive he might have had. As bizarre as it was that Kerviel had lost $7 billion worth of the bank's money without profiting personally, it's even more difficult to fathom a conspiracy involving more than one person committing a motive-less financial crime.

In the meantime, you'll be happy to know that, as of early February, Mr. Kerviel had not been fired because, The Wall Street Journal reported, "French law stipulates that to do that, the bank must first call him in for a sit-down meeting and explain its dissatisfaction. He has the right to bring along a trade-union official, a lawyer or anyone else he'd like."

I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that meeting.

Interesting article this week in the MIT Technology Review (OK, so I don't understand most of it, but I still aspire to be a geek) in the wake of the trading losses announced by Société Générale at the hands of rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel.

Last week, the French bank disclosed the $7.2 billion loss. In the wake of the disclosure, Bank of France chairman Christian Noyer declared to a French senate finance committee, "None of the controls within Societe Generale seem to have worked as they should have."

Interviewed in the article, MIT's Andrew Lo, head of the university's Laboratory of Financial Engineering, said that given the fact that all software systems have a human interface, "I would argue that it is impossible to prevent these disasters with 100 percent certainty."