Publicly Criticizing an Employer Is a Risky Career Strategy

Kavish Kataria, who lost his job at Societe Generale, says in a LinkedIn post he is being made a scapegoat

(Photo: Kavish Kataria; from his LinkedIn page.)

May 4, 2024

Businesses and organizations in most countries, especially in the West, regularly fire employees for a host of reasons, including cost cuts, weak job performance and disobeying rules.

It is rare for employees to publicly criticize their employer after they are laid off. Few, if any, businesses or organizations will hire such an employee. This is because employers fear that such a job seeker will likely publicly criticize them in case they are laid off or for not being paid a larger salary and bonus. In countries with pro-labor laws, such employees could file lawsuits as well as bring negative media publicity to the employer – even if the employer wins the case.

Typically, in a court case or an arbitration process, employers have far superior legal resources than a fired employee. Hence pro-employee lawyers and career coaches suggest that, even if an employee has solid grounds to contest a firing, it is best to control one’s anger and agree to a settlement with the employer. The employee should focus instead on finding another job, they say.   

This week, Kavish Kataria’s post on LinkedIn titled MY SIDE OF THE STORY got worldwide media attention. From 2021 to 2023, he traded Indian stocks and stock indexes at the Hong Kong office of Societe Generale (SocGen). In December last year, the French bank “fired me and terminated my contract,” he states. “It is very easy for an organisation to put the entire blame on traders and make them the scapegoat…Instead of taking the responsibility of the lapse in their risk system and not identifying the (risky) trades at the right time…”

Kataria was apparently responding to news reports earlier this week that SocGen confirmed that Kataria and team head Kevin Ng were dismissed last year after an internal review of their transactions. Two Hong Kong traders left SocGen “after the bank discovered unauthorised bets made via options contracts tied to Indian stock-market indices,” a source told Reuters.

Kataria writes that he did trade “options on Indian Indices and according to me it was in my (job) mandate.” Over four months this derivative trading strategy made a profit of almost two million Euros for the bank, he says. In an LinkedIn post earlier this week, which he apparently deleted, Kataria claimed he made $50 million for SocGen in his last eight months at the bank, CNBC reported.

The profit and loss on his trades “were reported on (a) daily basis” to his bosses in Hong Kong as well as to the headquarters in Paris. Societe Generale’s officials “knew options were traded…I HAD NO INTENTION OF HIDING THIS TRADES FROM ANYONE,” states Kataria.

“If the risk management team and their risk system would have identified the trades on day one and would have informed me that the trades are not in your mandate I wouldnt have traded that strategy… Why would i risk my Job…” Just mentioning that there was a technical glitch or “mentioning they were not aware of the trades done by me is completely incorrect,” Kataria adds.

The bank's risk-management systems failed to detect Kataria’s trades because they were made in the morning and unwound in the afternoon every day, leaving no trace of any trade exceeding limits in the books, Reuters reported. The trades did not exceed authorized trading amounts and led to no losses.

Kataria joined Societe Generale in May 2021 as a vice president in Hong Kong, trading Indian stocks and stock indexes. Earlier, from 2013 to 2021, he worked at Edelweiss Securities in Singapore, including as a trader of stocks, stock indexes, bonds, and foreign exchange.   

In 2012, he earned a Chartered Accountancy certification from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. From 2006 to 2011, he was at Kishinchand Chellaram College, Mumbai University, where he earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree.

Mistakes were made and “I accept my mistake,” Kataria states in his post.

Kataria says he posted his note on LinkedIn to offer his side of the story so that people should not pass judgements and “try to bring” a person down. While stock and other securities trading is a big business, Kataria says, “there are no rules or regulations which fight trader justice.” He called for better regulation after he was dismissed with seven days’ salary and his bonus for the previous year was withheld, a according to CNBC.

In 2008, Societe Generale lost $5.2 billion. This was because the bank’s internal risk controls failed to detect massive bets on derivatives by a "rogue trader" Jerome Kerviel, which spiraled out of control.

Kataria notes on his LinkedIn profile that he is #opentowork.