Still, Veil acknowledged that full repayment would, in all likelihood, be out of the question.
Banned for life from working in the financial industry, Kerviel was making 2,300 euros ($3,150 at the time) as a computer consultant after leaving the bank. Societe Generale had paid him less than 100,000 euros ($155,700) with bonuses, a modest sum for what he earned for the bank in 2007 when he amassed 1.4 billion euros in profits for the bank.
"Societe Generale will look at it realistically," Veil told reporters. However, he indicated the bank could take over royalty earnings from a book Kerviel published this year about the scandal as well as any income he might earn from movie deals.
"It would have been indecent for Mr. Kerviel to be able to preserve revenues coming from the exploitation of his fraud," Veil said.
The appeals court upheld the October 2010 conviction of Kerviel for forgery, breach of trust and unauthorized computer use for covering up bets worth nearly 50 billion euros -- more than the market value of the entire bank. It sentenced him to a five-year prison term -- with two years suspended -- and ordered him to pay 4.9 billion euros in damages.
A new appeal to the Court of Cassation would suspend carrying out the sentence.
Kerviel's lawyer, David Koubbi, called the verdict "absolutely lamentable."
The argument turns broadly on who is the victim in the case.
The Societe Generale lawyer pointedly referred to the bank as "the victim." But for many others, the real victim was the trader, who maintains he was a cog in a financial system that runs on greed and profits.
A colleague from Societe Generale who testified on Kerviel's behalf said the court didn't take into account others at the bank who surely knew about Kerviel's risky bets.
