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The Société Générale insider trade is an important part of his career, it should be more concise and reject the court's findings more clearly.
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The fund announced that it would inject $300 million to help finance the expansion of Fen Hotels, an Argentine hotel company. The funds will develop 5,000 rooms over the next three years throughout various Latin American countries.<ref>{{Cite news|title = George Soros Puts Money on Latin America Hotels|url = http://www.wsj.com/articles/soros-puts-money-on-latin-america-hotels-1447785866|newspaper = Wall Street Journal|access-date = 2015-11-22|issn = 0099-9660|first = Craig|last = Karmin}}</ref>
 
===Currency speculation===
Soros had been building a huge position in pounds sterling for months leading up to September 1992. Soros had recognized the unfavorable position of the United Kingdom in the [[European Exchange Rate Mechanism]]. For Soros, the rate at which the United Kingdom was brought into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism was too high, their inflation was also much too high (triple the German rate), and British interest rates were hurting their asset prices.<ref name="amazon1">{{cite book|url=http://www.amazon.com/More-Money-Than-God-Making/dp/1594202559/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275665470&sr=1-1 |title=More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite |author=Sebastian Mallaby |ISBN=9781594202551 |publisher=Penguin Press HC |date=June 10, 2010 |accessdate=2014-05-16}}</ref>
 
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On October 26, 1992, ''The Times'' quoted Soros as saying: "Our total [[Position (finance)|position]] by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $10&nbsp;billion. We planned to sell more than that. In fact, when [[Norman Lamont]] said just before the [[devaluation]] that he would borrow nearly $15&nbsp;billion to defend sterling, we were amused because that was about how much we wanted to sell."
 
[[Stanley Druckenmiller]], who traded under Soros, originally saw the weakness in the pound. "Soros's contribution was pushing him to take a gigantic position."{{clarify|reason=Who is being quoted?|date=January 2017}}<ref>Steven Drobny, ''Inside the House of Money'', John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, 2006.</ref><ref>''Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve'' (John Wiley, 1995), ISBN 978-0-471-12014-8</ref>
 
In 1997, during the [[Asian financial crisis]], the prime minister of Malaysia, [[Mahathir bin Mohamad]], accused Soros of using the wealth under his control to punish the [[Association of Southeast Asian Nations|Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)]] for welcoming [[Myanmar]] as a member. Following on a history of [[Antisemitism|antisemitic]] remarks, Mahathir made specific reference to Soros's Jewish background ("It is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge"<ref>{{Cite news| url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/3597972/Mahathirs-dark-side.html | location=London | work=The Daily Telegraph | title=Mahathir's dark side | date=October 24, 2003}}</ref>) and implied Soros was orchestrating the crash as part of a larger Jewish conspiracy. Nine years later, in 2006, Mahathir met with Soros and afterward stated that he accepted that Soros had not been responsible for the crisis.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070111172941/http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200612/s1812946.htm "Malaysian ex-premier Mahathir and billionaire Soros end feud"]. [[ABC News (Australia)|ABC News]]. Agence France-Presse. December 15, 2006.</ref> In 1998's ''The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered'' Soros explained his role in the crisis as follows:
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<blockquote>The financial crisis that originated in Thailand in 1997 was particularly unnerving because of its scope and severity.... By the beginning of 1997, it was clear to Soros Fund Management that the discrepancy between the trade account and the capital account was becoming untenable. We sold short the Thai baht and the Malaysian ringgit early in 1997 with maturities ranging from six months to a year. (That is, we entered into contracts to deliver at future dates Thai baht and Malaysian ringgit that we did not currently hold.) Subsequently Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia accused me of causing the crisis, a wholly unfounded accusation. We were not sellers of the currency during or several months before the crisis; on the contrary, we were buyers when the currencies began to decline—we were purchasing ringgits to realize the profits on our earlier speculation. (Much too soon, as it turned out. We left most of the potential gain on the table because we were afraid that Mahathir would impose capital controls. He did so, but much later.)<ref>Soros, George (1999). ''The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered'', 2nd ed., PublicAffairs, ISBN 978-1-891620-27-0, pp. 208–209.</ref></blockquote>
 
In 1999, economist [[Paul Krugman]] was critical of Soros's effect on financial markets.<blockquote>"[N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is 'Soroi'."<ref>{{cite book|title=The accidental theorist: and other dispatches from the dismal science|last=Krugman|first=Paul|authorlink=Paul Krugman|year=1999|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|location=New York|page=160|accessdate=}}</ref></blockquote>
 
In an interview regarding the [[late-2000s recession]], Soros referred to it as the most serious crisis since the 1930s. According to Soros, [[market fundamentalism]] with its assumption that markets will correct themselves with no need for government intervention in financial affairs has been "some kind of an [[ideological]] excess." In Soros's view, the markets' moods—a "mood" of the markets being a prevailing bias or optimism/pessimism with which the markets look at reality—"actually can reinforce themselves so that there are these initially self-reinforcing but eventually unsustainable and self-defeating boom/bust sequences or bubbles."<ref>''Bill Moyers Journal'', "George Soros on the financial crisis," published October 10, 2008, at <nowiki>http://odeo.com</nowiki>, [http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10102008/transcript1.html full transcript] and [http://odeo.com/episodes/23475214-George-Soros-on-the-financial-crisis podcast]</ref>
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{{quote|China has a major adjustment problem. I would say it amounts to a crisis. When I look at the financial markets there is a serious challenge which reminds me of the crisis we had in 2008.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-07/global-markets-at-the-beginning-of-a-crisis-george-soros-says |title=George Soros Sees Crisis in Global Markets That Echoes 2008 |last1=Haigh |first1=Adam |last2=Ondaatjie |first2=Anusha |date=6 January 2016 |website=bloomberg.com |publisher=Bloomberg LP |access-date=15 January 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/07/soros-its-the-2008-crisis-all-over-again.html |title=Soros: It's the 2008 crisis all over again |last1=Clinch |first1=Matt |date=7 January 2016 |website=cnbc.com |publisher=CNBC LLC.|access-date=15 January 2016}}</ref>}}
 
===Insider trading conviction===
In 1988 Soros was interested in purchasing shares in French companies. The Socialist party had lost its majority of seats in the Assembly in 1986, and the new government under [[Jacques Chirac]] had instituted an aggressive privatization program. Many people considered shares in the newly privatized companies undervalued. During this period, a French financier named Georges Pébereau contacted one of Soros's advisers in an effort to assemble a group of investors to purchase a large number of shares in [[Société Générale]], a leading French bank that was part of the program.
The adviser reported to Soros that Pébereau's plan was ambiguous and included an implausible [[takeover]] plan, which later failed. On that advice, and without ever having met the financier, Soros decided against participating.<ref>{{cite news|last=Saltmarsh|first=Saltmarsh|title=Soros to Get a Day in Court Over Insider Trading Case|work=The New York Times|date=September 15, 2010|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/business/global/16court.html|accessdate=October 12, 2011}}</ref>
 
Soros did, however, move forward with his strategy of accumulating shares in four French companies: Société Générale, as well as Suez, Paribas, and the Compagnie Générale d'Électricité. In 1989 the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (COB—the French stock exchange regulatory authority) conducted an investigation of whether Soros's transaction in Société Générale should be considered insider trading. Soros had received no information from the Société Générale and had no insider knowledge of the business, but he did possess knowledge that a group of investors was planning a takeover attempt. The COB concluded that the statutes, regulations, and case law relating to [[insider trading]] did not clearly establish that a crime had occurred and that no charges should be brought against Soros.<ref>{{cite news|last=Smith|first=Heather|title=Soros Insider-Trading Conviction Reviewed by Human Rights Court|work=[[Bloomberg Businessweek]]|date=October 4, 2011|url=http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-04/soros-insider-trading-conviction-reviewed-by-human-rights-court.html|accessdate=October 12, 2011}}</ref>
 
Several years later, a Paris-based prosecutor reopened the case against Soros and two other French businessmen, disregarding the COB's findings. This resulted in Soros's 2005 conviction for insider trading by the Court of Appeals (he was the only one of the three to receive a conviction). The French Supreme Court confirmed the conviction on June 14, 2006, but reduced the penalty to €940,000.<ref name=IHT20060614>[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/business/worldbusiness/14iht-soros.1974397.html "Insider trading conviction of Soros is upheld"]. ''International Herald Tribune''. June 14, 2006.</ref>
 
Punitive damages were not sought because of the delay in bringing the case to trial. Soros denied any wrongdoing, saying news of the takeover was public knowledge<ref name=pbs>[http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_soros.html "David Brancaccio interviews George Soros"]. ''Now''. PBS. September 12, 2003. Retrieved February 8, 2007.</ref> and it was documented that his intent to acquire shares of the company predated his own awareness of the takeover.<ref name=IHT20060614/>
 
His insider-trading conviction was upheld by the highest court in France on June 14, 2006.<ref name=IHT20060614 /> In December 2006 he appealed to the [[European Court of Human Rights]] on various grounds including that the 14-year delay in bringing the case to trial precluded a fair hearing.<ref>{{cite news|last=Lichfield |first=John|title=Financier Soros fined £1.4m for insider trading|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/financier-soros-fined-acircpound14m-for-insider-trading-611646.html|accessdate=October 12, 2011|newspaper=The Independent|location=London|date=December 22, 2002}}</ref> On the basis of [[Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights|Article 7]] of the [[European Convention on Human Rights]], stating that no person may be punished for an act that was not a criminal offense at the time that it was committed, the court agreed to hear the appeal.<ref>{{cite news|last=Saltmarsh|first=Matthew|title=Soros to Get a Day in Court Over Insider Trading Case|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/business/global/16court.html?_r=1&dbk|accessdate=September 18, 2011|newspaper=The New York Times|date=September 15, 2010}}</ref> In October 2011 the court rejected his appeal in a 4–3 decision, saying that Soros had been aware of the risk of breaking insider trading laws.<ref name=insider>{{cite news|author=Smith, Heather |title=Soros Loses Case Against French Insider-Trading Conviction|url=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-06/soros-loses-human-rights-appeal-against-insider-trading-case.html|accessdate=October 9, 2011|publisher=Bloomberg L.P.|date=October 6, 2011}}</ref>
 
== Personal life ==
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros"