An expose of bad businesses and their unethical practices

A lone futures trader who had lied to investors and dignificantly exceeded his authority has involved the French Societe General bank in a fraud exceeding $7 billion. The bank, already having financial difficulties because of the subprime mortgage crisis, has already said that it will need to seek at least $8 billion in fresh capital in order to keep doing business.
    
Shares in the bank have already lost nearly half their value on the Bourse exchange, and trading has been suspended. The single trader managed to defraud investors out of this huge amount in only two years, 2007 and 2008. The bank’s spokesman said that it was a “scheme of elaborate fictitious transactions."

The individual involved has confessed to the fraud and is being fired. He apparently used his great knowledge of the institution’s security systems to hide his illegal transactions. The extent of the fraud did not become known until the weekend of January 19. If the numbers are confirmed, this would be by far the largest fraud ever perpetrated by a single trader, making it Bad Business on a huge scale.