Let me get this straight - a rogue trader at Société Générale loses €4.9 billion ($7.16 billion American, and dropping) over roughly a year and nobody noticed?

Société Générale, one of the largest banks in Europe, was thrown into turmoil Thursday after it disclosed that a rogue employee executed a series of “elaborate, fictitious transactions” that cost the bank more than $7 billion, the biggest loss ever recorded by a single trader.

Daniel Bouton, Société Générale’s chairman and chief executive, said the employee, later identified by other bank employees as Jérôme Kerviel, had confessed to the fraud, although he did not appear to have profited personally from the trades. The bank has started legal proceedings against the employee, whom Christian Noyer, the governor of the Bank of France, said was “on the run.”

Not to be cynical and shit, but are we to believe that Société Générale learned nothing from the Nick Leeson episode? That this guy got through five levels of internal controls in order to hide the trades?

And I’m not the only one that thinks this is bullshit.

Howard Davies, the former chairman of the Financial Services Authority of Britain, who is now director of the London School of Economics, said Société Générale’s explanation of events seemed incomplete.

“I don’t think we’ve had the full story,” Mr. Davies said, arguing that one person, however well informed on the bank’s control procedures, should not be able to hide a trade of this scale.

As if losing $7 billion wasn’t enough, Société Générale also has its share of, you guessed it, Big Shitpile:

… that wasn’t the only bad news Societe Generale announced Thursday. It also said it was taking additional €2.05 billion write down in assets related to subprime exposure, and it would launch a capital increase of €5.5 billion in the “following weeks.”

As another blogger pointed out, the $7 billion in trading losses at least makes the $3 billion in Big Shitpile writedowns look modest.

We are so fucked.