A double decision and a setback for businessman Vincent Bolloré.
The Paris court on Friday refused to validate a "plea-guilty" procedure negotiated between the Breton billionaire and the national financial prosecutor (PNF) in a corruption case in Togo, considering that it was unsuitable for the gravity of the facts charged, and that it was "necessary" that these facts, punishable by a maximum of five years in prison, be tried by a criminal court.
Vincent Bolloré, 17th fortune in France, but also Gilles Alix, CEO of the Bolloré group and Jean-Philippe Dorent, international director of the Havas agency, a subsidiary of Bolloré, had agreed to an appearance on prior acknowledgment of guilt (CRPC) and the payment of a fine of 375,000 euros.
The decision to plead guilty was revealed by the Obs this Friday morning.
But during the hearing, the judge refused to approve this agreement, in particular on the grounds that the envisaged sentence was not up to facts having "seriously undermined economic public order" and "sovereignty of Togo ”.
A public interest fine of 12 million euros
The case, which was the subject of a judicial investigation opened in 2013 for facts of "corruption of a foreign public official, breach of trust and complicity in breach of trust committed between 2009 and 2011", will return therefore to the investigating judges.
It is up to them to send or not the billionaire and the two other leaders to the criminal court for a trial.
During the hearing, the same judge, on the other hand, validated the judicial agreement of public interest (CJIP) concluded at the beginning of February between the financial public prosecutor and the Bolloré group (i.e. the legal person, and not the natural persons ).
By this agreement, the company "undertakes to pay the public treasury, within ten days, a public interest fine in the amount of 12 million euros", the PNF said in a press release.
It also undertakes "to have the French Anti-Corruption Agency (AFA) assess the effectiveness of its compliance program for two years and to bear the cost up to a maximum of 4 million euros", is it specified.
Subject to the fulfillment of these obligations, the validation of the CIPJ act of the end of the proceedings against the group.
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The holding company as well as Vincent Bolloré, Gilles Alix and Jean-Philippe Dorente acknowledged this Friday having used the political advisory activities of the Havas subsidiary in order to obtain the management of the ports of Lomé, in Togo, and Conakry, in Guinea, via another of its subsidiaries, Bolloré Africa Logistics, formerly called SDV.
SDV had obtained the management of the port of Conakry a few months after the election to the presidency of Guinea of Alpha Condé at the end of 2010, and had won the concession in Lomé shortly before the re-election in 2010 in Togo of Faure Gnassingbé, who were then both advised by Havas.
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The indictment of the protagonists for part of the offenses concerning Guinea had been canceled by the Paris Court of Appeal in June 2019, due to limitation.
Solicited, Vincent Bolloré's lawyer, Me Olivier Baratelli, could not be reached this Friday.
Neither he nor his client spoke at the end of the hearing.
