CASE OF BERNARD TAPIE ADDIDAS / CREDIT LYONNAIS

THE BEGINNING OF JUSTICE

Bernard Tapie: "My cancer has just taken a dirty blow in the mouth" launched the former minister, under chemotherapy for a double cancer

"It's proof that you always have to fight to the end."

Dominique Tapie, the wife of the former minister commented:

"It's the best day of my husband's life because his honor has been recognized"

Hervé Temime Bernard Tapie's lawyer:

"The court has rendered with rare independence a judgment of exceptional clarity and it is for us (...) an immense satisfaction and a great liberation"

Prosecuted for fraud and embezzlement of public funds, former minister Bernard Tapie, a five-year prison sentence and 375,000 euros fine that was required on April 1, 2019, against the businessman, He was reproached for organizing, with his former lawyer Maurice Lantourne, arbitration "rigged" in consultation with one of the three members of the arbitral tribunal, the high magistrate Pierre Estoup to settle the dispute between Bernard Tapie and Credit Lyonnais, bound on the resale of Adidas in the 1990s.

For the public prosecutor, who has not yet announced whether he would appeal, Bernard Tapie had "rigged" the arbitration which had granted him in July 2008 the unprecedented sum of 45 million euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage .

This judgment does not, however, call into question the judgment of the Paris Court of Cassation in the civil part of the case.

The court annulled the arbitration in 2016, deeming it "fraudulent" and sentenced Bernard Tapie to repay the 404 million euros obtained.

A decision that appears today at odds with the relaxation pronounced in the criminal aspect.

However, the two procedures were not exactly the same thing.

- In the civil part, it was a question of judging the decision taken during the arbitration itself.

- In the criminal section, judges were interested in the conditions under which this procedure was chosen and executed.

- The court has not retried Adidas litigation, it was not seized, said Hervé Temime, the lawyer Bernard Tapie.

- But for me there is no consistency between these decisions.

Other relaxed person Stéphane Richard, 57, Orange CEO at the head of the telecom operator, at the time of the case, Stephane Richard was Chief of Staff of the Minister of Economy and Finance Christine Lagarde, for which the public prosecutor had requested against him three years of prison of which 18 months firm, 100,000 euros fine and a prohibition of any civil service during five years

Stéphane Richard, said on leaving the court:

"Today there is this relief to have my innocence totally recognized by this court, it's the feeling that dominates me, the court said the arbitration was legal, it even said it was legitimate" .

Seen from here (USA)

This judgment is only the beginning of a right return of things, because if the memory is missing a certain it is necessary to remember on the bottom of the facts which generated this situation !!

Indeed the case Addidas Bernard Tapie is not the only one in which the Credit Lyonnais has been involved !!!

Jean-Maxime Lévêque former president of Crédit Lyonnais but also owner of an exotic bank, International Bankers, is one of the actors of the Crédit Lyonnais disaster and its 120 billion losses of the nationalized bank!

Jean Maxime graduated from the ENA in 1948, senior official, inspector of finance, he accumulates prestigious appointments and represents France at the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

He left his post of economic adviser at the Elysée in 1964 for the Crédit commercial de France (CCF), of which he became president in 1976.

In 1982 that turns the fate of Jean-Maxime Lévêque. This year he created a promising small bank, the International Bankers Incorporated Cy NV Holding (IBI), which he lives in the Netherlands Antilles.

The sulphurous story of Jean-Maxime Lévêque begins in Curaçao, in the Netherlands Antilles.

This tax haven will be the home of IBI. The Bank's operational headquarters, International Bankers SA, is located in Luxembourg.

In addition to the mysterious Sheikh Baroum, IBI's round table brings together three former CCF clients. There is the Syrian Akram Ojjeh, the Saudi Adnan Kashoggi and the Lebanese Samir Traboulsi.

With 130 million initial capital, the small IBI has great ambitions.

Jean-Maxime Lévêque, who wants to make it a star of international trading, quickly creates branches of the bank in Paris, London, Hong Kong and Geneva.

The bank's range of services is vast and particularly suited to companies and business people who want financial flows to be lost in specially created exotic companies.

In the field of the administration of offshore companies, explains a report of the direction of the economic and financial studies of Credit Lyonnais, IBI is able to intervene on twenty types of companies, located legally in Luxembourg or on other offshore places (Jersey, Panama, Netherlands Antilles, etc.).

The appointment of Jean-Maxime Lévêque in July 1986 as President of Crédit Lyonnais.

After the defeat of the right in the parliamentary elections of 1988, Jean-Maxime Lévêque is dismissed from the presidency of Lyonnais and regains the seat of president of an IBI he had not really left, since he had taken great care to maintain, in the meantime, the functions of vice-president of the bank.

In 1994, IBI's losses amounted to several billion francs, and Crédit Lyonnais, the leading shareholder, paid the bill alone.

On the money of the French taxpayer !!!

The most extravagant records of this financial madness:

Altus Finances, MGM, Addidas, Sasea and its accounts in Switzerland ...

With many influential businessmen like Robert Maxwell, Bernard Tapie, Florio Fiorini, Giancarlo Parretti ........ !!

Crédit Lyonnais innocent?

That's a lot of business !!

All guilty except the Credit Lyonnais ???

The case Addidas Bernard Tapie / Credit Lyonnais is too long, the compensation of Bernard Tapie seems normal, even if the sum of 404 million euros may seem important to the general public.