“In the end it worked out at just one day in prison for every €50m (£40m) lost by the French rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, who was freed by an appeal court on Thursday.
Kerviel was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to five years in jail – two suspended – and ordered to repay almost €5bn he had lost the French bank Sociéte Générale in unauthorised deals .
After numerous appeals and legal wrangling, he was released by the Paris appeal court on Thursday after 110 days in prison. The judge rejected a demand by French prosecutors that Kerviel remain in jail but ordered him to wear an electronic tag.
The former trader, who carried out one of the biggest trading frauds in history, had been told in March that he would not have to repay the bank.
The 37-year-old had managed to stay the 2010 sentence through the lengthy appeal process but was jailed in May after returning from Italy where he met Pope Francis. Kerviel was arrested after crossing the border into France while on a much-publicised two-month pilgrimage from Rome to Paris to draw attention to the "tyranny" of financial markets.
At the beginning of August, he was given a conditional release from prison, but was denied his freedom after a successful appeal against the decision by the prosecutor's office. That appeal was overturned on Thursday.’
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