France's highest administrative court found that former Minister of Finance, Christine Lagarde, had acted negligently when she decided to agree to Bernard Tapie's request that his claim for 433 million euros should not go to court but be heard at arbitration. Tapie had claimed that when he sold Adidas his sportswear firm the bank involved deliberately undervalued the company and sold it on at an enormous profit.
The claim has been back and forth through the courts and is suspended until the case against Lagarde had been heard.
The court found that she had indeed been negligent, but that no further action was necessary.
It is speculated that Mme Lagarde's position as head of the IMF influenced this as it would be embarrassing to all if two successive French IMF presidents had been forced to resign under a cloud (remember DSK- Dominique Strauss Kahn?). It has been reported that over 30 politicians and party officials from the Sarkozy regime have been under investigation, including the former president himself, one of the reasons he failed to get near to winning the party nomination.
comments to taglines82@gmail.com
