BNP Paribas SA chairman Baudouin Prot may leave in the next few months and be succeeded by Jean Lemierre, a senior adviser at the French bank, Le Journal du Dimanche reported, without saying where it got the information.

BNP Paribas last month posted its largest ever quarterly loss and replaced its compliance chief after a record fine for doing business with Sudan and other countries blacklisted by the U.S. BNP Paribas, based in Paris, was fined $8.97 billion after pleading guilty to criminal charges in the U.S. in June.

No decision has been taken on Prot’s possible departure and his responsibility hasn’t been questioned by U.S. authorities, JDD said Sunday. Prot, 63, was chief executive officer from 2003 to 2011.

Isabelle Wolff, a spokeswoman at BNP Paribas, declined to comment, referring to earlier remarks by CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafe. “Prot is BNP Paribas’s chairman,” Bonnafe told Les Echos in an interview published last month. “He has vocation to stay so and he’s helping us every day. Even if the shock is as tough for him as for the rest of the group.” (Bloomberg)