Remember George Soros? Well, a French Court has upheld his conviction on insider trading charges.

George Soros's bid to overturn an insider-trading conviction has been rejected by France's highest appeals court, ending the billionaire's fight to erase a legal stain on his 40-year investing career.

The Court of Cassation, the tribunal of last resort in France, ended its review of a March 2005 judgment that Soros broke insider-trading laws when he bought Societe Generale SA shares in 1988 with the knowledge that the bank might be a takeover target. The Hungary-born financier has been fighting the case for 17 years.

``The court did not respond to one of our key arguments concerning the fact that the length of the proceedings didn't allow Mr. Soros to have a fair trial,'' said Ron Soffer, one of Soros's lawyers.

The verdict came as the 75-year-old former financier turned his attention from his investing career to political and charitable activities. Soros had been ordered to pay back 2.2 million euros ($2.8 million) in gains. That amount will now be reviewed, Soffer said.

The 2005 Paris appeals court ruling upheld a 2002 conviction by a first-instance tribunal. The judges rejected Soros's contention that he didn't consider the information that led him to buy Societe Generale shares to be confidential. The French government sold Societe Generale in June 1987 at 407 French francs a share. A year later, after a stock market crash, the shares had fallen to 260 francs.

I wonder – will the final adjudication of this financial scandal lead Democrats and other American Leftists to return donations from Soros and organizations under his control? Or will such disassociation from financial corruption be considered inappropriate by Democrats – though they would scream from it if the case involved a Republican donor?

Posted by: Greg at 10:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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