The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed on Thursday the rejection of the second backup plan for the two companies of Bernard Tapie and the conversion of their backup into receivership. The Consortium de Réalisation (CDR), a structure responsible for managing the liabilities of Crédit Lyonnais in dispute with Bernard Tapie, declared that this decision enabled it to approach with confidence the judgments of the Commercial Court of Bobigny scheduled for April 30 on a similar recovery plan project.
François Kopf, lawyer for Bernard Tapie, considers precisely that the essential will be played out before the jurisdiction of Bobigny and that the decision made Thursday only concerns "an old aspect of the case". "The Court considered that in the absence of economic activity of the companies GBT and FIBT and therefore of income from them, only their liquidity and their assets could have enabled the discharge of the declared liabilities of 461 million euros " , Writes the CDR in a press release.
Read also: Bernard Tapie: "Why I appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union"
However, criminal seizures weigh on the liquidity of these companies and their assets are affected by other procedures or unavailable immediately, says CDR. Consequently, GBT and FIBT cannot demonstrate that they are able to meet the first three deadlines of the draft safeguarding plan, he adds. François Kopf disputes this interpretation. According to the lawyer for Bernard Tapie, "there is never any doubt (in Thursday's decision) of the companies' ability to repay their liabilities" .
François Kopf also claims that “a sales agreement was concluded concerning the Hôtel de Cavoye (property of Bernard Tapie in the 6th arrondissement of Paris-NDLR) and the proceeds from the sale (...) cover the first two years of the plan if it is adopted by the Bobigny Commercial Court ” . For the lawyer, the judgment of the court of appeal above all makes it possible “to confirm the real intention of the CDR in this file” . "The recovery of the sums due is not their priority and they only seek to bring down Bernard Tapie and force the compulsory liquidation of his companies" , he affirms.
Read also: The Adidas-Credit Lyonnais affair, a bad soap opera of twenty-five years
The dispute between Bernard Tapie and the CDR was linked to the sale of the sports equipment supplier Adidas in 1993, an operation during which the businessman said he had been cheated by Crédit Lyonnais. In 2008, Bernard Tapie was awarded 403 million euros, including 45 million for non-pecuniary damage in the context of an arbitration which was then challenged in court. Judged for scam, Bernard Tapie benefited from a release last July but was nevertheless condemned to reimburse the 403 million euros of the arbitration.