Bernard Tapie resumes this Monday his judicial Stations of the Cross where he left off last fall. Among one of the many procedures that have marked his life for thirty years, this is undoubtedly one of the most symbolic. This involves judging on appeal and in criminal proceedings, for at least one month, the former businessman, his lawyer Maurice Lantourne, the arbitrator Pierre Estoup, three senior officials, including Stéphane Richard - former right-hand man of Christine. Lagarde and now CEO of Orange - as well as Bernard Scemama and Jean-François Rocchi, formerly representatives of CDR, the Realization Consortium, which was responsible for managing the liabilities of Crédit Lyonnais after the bank's virtual bankruptcy in 1993.
At the center of the debates: the arbitration which, in 2008, had enabled the State, for 400 million euros - including 45 net of tax for "moral prejudice" -, to get out of the imbroglio of the sale of 'Adidas, concluded by Credit Lyonnais and contested since by Bernard Tapie. Among the offenses, the swindle and the embezzlement of which the first three protagonists would have been guilty by concluding this arbitration, with the complicity of the three others.
During a first criminal judgment dated July 9, 2019, the courts had totally acquitted all of the defendants.
The prosecution, humiliated, had appealed.
Interrupted in the fall because of the health of Bernard Tapie, the trial therefore resumes, with three major times: that of the advisability of the arbitration, that of the arbitration itself and, finally, that relating to the 'lack of recourse against the latter.
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In 2015, the civil justice had already canceled the arbitration on the grounds that it was fraudulent and denounced a fraud at the judgment because of the proximity of Bernard Tapie, Maurice Lantourne and Pierre Estoup. Bernard Tapie was then ordered to reimburse the sums collected. It is quite possible that, if the investigating magistrates, then seized of the criminal case, had contented themselves with following in the footsteps of this first civil judgment, the case would not be there today. By broadening their qualification to embezzle public funds and swindle - initially in an organized gang - the magistrates took a risk that is paid for up to the appeal with
"a case today poorly put together"
, recognizes a relative of the case.
"It will take many contortions at the Court of Appeal and the General Prosecutor's Office if they want to avoid a new general acquittal",
comments this source. During the autumn hearings, President Sophie Clément had thus evoked, for the three senior officials, the examination of negligence, as was reproached to Christine Lagarde. Which is far from the crime of complicity in fraud. It will still be necessary for such a reclassification of the facts to be possible. As for the general prosecutor's office, he had let filter the possibility of a Bernard Tapie more accomplice than author. If the first instance judgment is upheld, we will find ourselves in an unprecedented situation of civil and criminal judgments.
Bernard Tapie, in any case, does not lose any of his fighting spirit. He has just filed a new complaint, in turn for fraud in the judgment, against the CDR as well as a Belgian administrator, accusing them of maneuvering in legal turmoil to prevent it from paying its debts and thus provoke its liquidation. At stake, in particular, the villa of Saint-Tropez, estimated at 50 million euros, but which Bernard Tapie cannot dispose of since the resale is pre-empted by the Belgian administrator, even though the commercial court of Bobigny has requested that 'it joined all of the Tapie assets a year ago. Also at stake, 90 million of liquidity frozen by the Paris prosecutor's office, with which Bernard Tapie hoped to get his companies afloat, guaranteeing future repayments.
