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IMF CHIEF CHRISTINE Lagarde has been ordered to stand trial in France over a massive state payout to a controversial tycoon when she was French economy minister.
France’s highest appeals court today dismissed Lagarde’s challenge against the decision to try her for negligence in her handling of a dispute between a state-owned bank and businessman Bernard Tapie.
Tapie walked away with a huge €404 million in compensation in 2008 after Lagarde ordered the long-running row over the sale of sports gear giant Adidas to be resolved by arbitration.
Friday’s ruling means the 60-year-old IMF chief will go before a special tribunal that hears cases against government ministers accused of wrongdoing in the discharge of their duties.
The ruling is a blow to the IMF boss, who insists she acted in France’s best interests in the case.
She will be the third successive head of the Washington-based lender to face trial.
Her predecessor, compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was acquitted of pimping by a French court last year, four years after he resigned his IMF post to fight separate sexual assault allegations.
Spain’s former IMF chief Rodrigo Rato has also been ordered to stand trial for misusing funds when he was head of Spanish lender Bankia.
Background
Lagarde was placed under formal investigation in 2014 over her handling of a long-running dispute with Tapie, who claimed he was defrauded by the state-controlled bank Credit Lyonnais in its handling of his sale of Adidas in the 1990s.
The case against Lagarde stems from her decision to allow the row be settled by arbitration instead of by the courts, which would likely have resulted in a much smaller bill for the state.
Prosecutors have also questioned her failure to challenge the massive award.
A court has since found the arbitration to be fraudulent because one of the arbitrators had links to 73-year-old Tapie.
‘Clear conscience’
Lagarde has denied any wrongdoing or that she acted on orders from then president Nicolas Sarkozy, of whom Tapie was a supporter.
In an interview with AFP in Washington earlier this month she insisted she had a “clear conscience,” saying:
I’ve always acted in accordance with the law, and I’ve always had in mind the public interest.
“It was not my duty to select the arbitration panel, to investigate their past and history, and I had no reason to doubt their probity and honesty,” she said.
Investigating magistrates however found evidence of “serious negligence on the part of a minister tasked with conducting affairs of state” and in December ordered the case go to trial.
Lagarde appealed the decision, but her challenge was struck out today.
The former corporate lawyer became the first woman to head the IMF when she replaced Strauss-Kahn in July 2011.
The ruling comes just days after she began her second term as head of the institution, where she has been hailed as both a tough negotiator and a skilled consensus-builder.
If tried and convicted, she risks up to a year in prison and a fine of €15,000.
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My gun safe is under my bed. If an intruder was in my house I’d pull the trigger first and ask questions after. He has absolutely no business there only to rob or do my family harm.
As the saying goes it’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
Your CPO signed off on having your gun safe under your bed instead of attached to a structural wall as required by law?
I think confronting such a scumbag would depend more on how many of them there were than simple courage.
The only reason cavan people are the most likely to stop inturders is because they are to scabby to lose anything
"not to become complacent"?
It’s my home not a prison, I am not going to live my life in fear of something that has very little chance of ever happening.
Besides, I would mangle anyone who tried it :)
You haven’t got enough "stuff"…
Thank god my gun safe is in my room, i keep it loaded and the door locked so as to give me time to get it and point at the door. Anyone that enters my home illegally is leaving in a bodybag regardless of whether their armed or not. No apologies to lefts will be made.
Got my gun under my bed ready in case of burglars, too right, I’d protect myself and family, shoot to kill I would
A lot of break ins in my area in the last few months. all of them in the morning when people are at work and houses are empty. most of these scumbags are looking for a nice handy rob. the best deterrent is a good savage dog.
I’m not married.
All I have is pepper.
Option A
Restained a burglar and call the guards.
For starters I would probably have to wait for about an hour or more for them to come. The guards finally arrive, take him to the station, maybe accuse me of assault. Let him out within a day informing him he will recieve a summons.
Meanwhile hes angry and wants to get revenge. Maybe come back and harm my family when I’m not there.
Option B
Restain him, Kill him
Had he cleaned the stain before you restained him, before killing him? :)
the worse thing about these polls is that they show scumbags there is a 10% chance of being injured if they rob houses in Clare, Dublin or kildare. must encourage my neighbors to answer that question with yeah I’d kill them if they even step on to my land… and beat them up if they throw papers in the street.:) if they know there is a good chance of not getting caught or not getting killed then the odds are in their favor.
Do they say how many of the respondents were scumbags? That could skew the results.
have your say