Head of IMF arrested and accused of sexual assault

[Magda Hassan]

Hmmmmm

Christine Lagarde faces inquiry over €285m payout for Sarkozy ally

Judge orders investigation into controversial decision made by new IMF chief in 2007 when she was French finance minister

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 August 2011 16.01 BST

A French court has ordered a formal investigation into whether the IMF head Christine Lagarde abused her position when she was finance minister in allowing a huge state settlement to a businessman friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The court of justice of the republic, a special tribunal qualified to judge ministers, ruled there were grounds to examine Lagarde's role in arbitrating in favour of the controversial tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2008.

Tapie, the former owner of the football club Olympic Marseille and Socialist minister, served a seven-month jail term in 1997 for match-fixing and has a tax fraud conviction. In recent years he has made a remarkable public comeback as an actor, singer, chatshow host and prominent supporter of the president.

The Largarde investigation concerns a decades-long legal dispute Tapie had with a former state-owned bank which he claimed cheated him when handling the 1993 sale of his Adidas sports empire.

In 2007, Lagarde ended the dispute by ordering a special panel of judges to arbitrate an out-of-court settlement.

They ruled that Tapie should receive €285m (£247m) in damages from the public purse, a ruling that scandalised opposition politicians.

A judicial inquiry will now examine Lagarde's decision to order arbitration instead of letting the Tapie affair be decided by the courts. It will also consider whether she refused expert advice to appeal against the huge payout, simply allowing Tapie to walk away with his cheque.

The French inquiry into Lagarde is likely to drag on for years and could cast a shadow over her leadership of the IMF. At the end of the investigation, judges will decide whether she should face trial. Lagarde has denied any misconduct in the case.

Lagarde, a lawyer who was one of Sarkozy's most popular ministers, took over leadership of the IMF in Washington on 5 July after the former head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, resigned amid allegations he attempted to rape a New York hotel maid.

Lagarde's lawyer, Yves Repiquet, immediately issued a statement saying the French judicial inquiry would not affect her IMF duties. "This procedure is in no way incompatible with the current functions of the managing director of the IMF," he said.

The statement was supported by a similar comment from the IMF board, which said: "It would not be appropriate for the board to comment on a case that is currently before the French judiciary. However, the board is confident that she will be able to effectively carry out her duties as managing director."

IMF head Lagarde's flat searched in Bernard Tapie probe

Christine Lagarde denies any misconduct
Continue reading the main story

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French police have searched the Paris apartment of IMF chief Christine Lagarde, as they investigate her role in awarding financial compensation to businessman Bernard Tapie in 2008.
As finance minister, she referred his long-running dispute with bank Credit Lyonnais to an arbitration panel, which awarded him 400m euros (£340m) damages.
Mr Tapie was a supporter of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Critics say she abused her authority but Ms Lagarde denies any wrongdoing.
"This search will help uncover the truth, which will contribute to exonerating my client from any criminal wrongdoing," Ms Lagarde's lawyer, Yves Repiquet, told the Reuters news agency.
The BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris says investigators suspect Mr Tapie was granted a deal in return for his support of President Sarkozy in the 2007 election.
There is speculation in France that Ms Lagarde could yet be placed under formal investigation in this case, he adds.
The origins of the case date back 20 years.
Continue reading the main story

Bernard Tapie case

• 1993: Credit Lyonnais bank handles sale of Adidas, in which Bernard Tapie is a majority stakeholder
  
• 1993-2007: Court battle drags on as Mr Tapie claims Credit Lyonnais undervalued the sale and that he was cheated following the winding-up of the once publicly-owned bank
  
• 2007: Mr Tapie, a former Socialist, switches to support Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election. Ms Lagarde, Mr Sarkozy's finance minister, intervenes in the Tapie case to order binding arbitration
  
• 2008: Special panel of judges rules Mr Tapie should receive damages of 285m euros (400m after interest added)
  
• 2011: Public prosecutor recommends judicial investigation into her actions
  

Mr Tapie, who has long been active in French business, sporting and political circles, sued Credit Lyonnais over its handling of the sale in 1993 of sportswear brand Adidas, in which he was a majority stakeholder.
After years in the courts, the case was referred by Ms Lagarde to an arbitration panel in 2007 and she approved its decision to award damages.
Public money Critics said the case should not have been settled by private arbitration, since public money was at stake in the bank, which was part-owned by the state.
The settlement Mr Tapie received is believed to be a far greater sum than he would likely have received from the courts.
In an interview in January, Ms Lagarde stood by her decision, saying it was "the best solution at the time".
Ms Lagarde replaced the disgraced IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was arrested in New York in 2011 on allegations of attempted rape.
Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyers settled a civil case for an undisclosed sum and a criminal investigation was dropped by US prosecutors last year.
However, our correspondent says that Ms Lagarde's position at the IMF could be in jeopardy if she is placed under formal investigation.
Her term as IMF chief does not expire until 2016, but amid the complexities of Europe's economic crisis this is a distraction she can ill afford, he adds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21858531

[Jan Klimkowski]

Les flics have to be given permission to go after a DSK or a Lagarde.

I wonder who's in charge of this particular escapade?

[Magda Hassan]

Could be related to Herve Falciani and some one on the Lagarde List some of which was published in the Greek magazine Hot Docs by Kostas Vaxevanis. Maybe not.

[Magda Hassan]

Hmmmmm

Christine Lagarde faces inquiry over €285m payout for Sarkozy ally

Judge orders investigation into controversial decision made by new IMF chief in 2007 when she was French finance minister

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 August 2011 16.01 BST

A French court has ordered a formal investigation into whether the IMF head Christine Lagarde abused her position when she was finance minister in allowing a huge state settlement to a businessman friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The court of justice of the republic, a special tribunal qualified to judge ministers, ruled there were grounds to examine Lagarde's role in arbitrating in favour of the controversial tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2008.

Tapie, the former owner of the football club Olympic Marseille and Socialist minister, served a seven-month jail term in 1997 for match-fixing and has a tax fraud conviction. In recent years he has made a remarkable public comeback as an actor, singer, chatshow host and prominent supporter of the president.

The Largarde investigation concerns a decades-long legal dispute Tapie had with a former state-owned bank which he claimed cheated him when handling the 1993 sale of his Adidas sports empire.

In 2007, Lagarde ended the dispute by ordering a special panel of judges to arbitrate an out-of-court settlement.

They ruled that Tapie should receive €285m (£247m) in damages from the public purse, a ruling that scandalised opposition politicians.

A judicial inquiry will now examine Lagarde's decision to order arbitration instead of letting the Tapie affair be decided by the courts. It will also consider whether she refused expert advice to appeal against the huge payout, simply allowing Tapie to walk away with his cheque.

The French inquiry into Lagarde is likely to drag on for years and could cast a shadow over her leadership of the IMF. At the end of the investigation, judges will decide whether she should face trial. Lagarde has denied any misconduct in the case.

Lagarde, a lawyer who was one of Sarkozy's most popular ministers, took over leadership of the IMF in Washington on 5 July after the former head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, resigned amid allegations he attempted to rape a New York hotel maid.

Lagarde's lawyer, Yves Repiquet, immediately issued a statement saying the French judicial inquiry would not affect her IMF duties. "This procedure is in no way incompatible with the current functions of the managing director of the IMF," he said.

The statement was supported by a similar comment from the IMF board, which said: "It would not be appropriate for the board to comment on a case that is currently before the French judiciary. However, the board is confident that she will be able to effectively carry out her duties as managing director."

LATEST UPDATE: 10/07/2013

- BUSINESS - FRANCE - JUSTICE - MEDIA - OLYMPIQUE MARSEILLE

French tycoon Tapie blasts court after assets seizure

© Photo: AFP

French business tycoon Bernard Tapie, suspected of rigging a 403 million euro payout during Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency, said in a TV interview Wednesday he had been "executed" before "sentence" after judges ordered the seizure of his assets.

By Oliver FARRY (video)





Notorious French business tycoon Bernard Tapie, suspected of rigging a 403 million euro arbitration settlement he received in 2008, on Wednesday said in a TV interview he had been "executed before he was sentenced" after judges ordered his assets seized.
Court bailiffs will confiscate assets worth tens of millions of euros including a luxury villa on the French Mediterranean coast in a move that suggests investigating judges believe they have evidence of fraud arbitration payment he received in 2008 under former president Nicolas Sarkozy.
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Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said the Socialist government, which took power after Sarkozy's May 2012 election defeat, had asked for "protective measures" to be taken in case reparations needed to be made to the state.
Tapie a former Socialist minister, singer and football club owner who supported Sarkozy in the last two elections - was awarded the money to settle a dispute with the now defunct, state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais over a 1993 share sale.
He was awarded 285 million euros, rising to 403 million with interest and before taxes, to settle his claim that the bank defrauded him by buying his stake in sports firm Adidas for 315.5 million euros only to sell it on a year on for 701 million.
Sarkozy's legal headaches
Under formal investigation since June 28 on suspicion that the arbitration payment may have been rigged, Tapie has denied any wrongdoing and said he would contest the seizures of his property.
"I didn't realise I live in a country where people are executed before they are sentenced," Tapie, 70, said in a 45-minute interview on French TV channel iTele.
Sarkozy has immunity for life for any acts carried out while he was president.
But the former president could come under scrutiny if it emerged that the arbitration settlement was planned earlier, when he was finance minister under former president Jacques Chirac.
The Tapie affair is the latest in a string of legal headaches pressing on Sarkozy as he mulls a possible political comeback to reunite his fractured UMP conservative party ahead of the 2017 presidential election.
It has embroiled several of his former cabinet members including International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, who was his finance minister in 2008.
http://www.france24.com/en/20130710-fren...led_tycoon

[Magda Hassan]

Does the Name "Strauss-Kahn" Ring a Bell?

Trotsky at the IMF

by MIKE WHITNEY
The International Monetary Fund has finally admitted that it was wrong to recommend austerity as early as it did in 2010-2011. The IMF now agrees that it should have waited until the US and EU economies were on a sustainable growth-path before advising them to trim their budget deficits and reduce public spending. According to a report issued by the IMF's research division, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO): "IMF advocacy of fiscal consolidation proved to be premature for major advanced economies, as growth projections turned out to be optimistic…This policy mix was less than fully effective in promoting recovery and exacerbated adverse spillovers."
Now there's an understatement.
What's so disingenuous about the IMF's apology, is that the bank knew exactly what the effects of its policy would be, but stuck with its recommendations to reward its constituents. That's what really happened. The only reason it's trying to distance itself from those decisions now, is to make the public think it was all just a big mistake.
But it wasn't a mistake. It was deliberate and here's the chart that proves it:

(Democrats Reap What They Sowed, Rob Urie, CounterPunch)
There it is, six years of policy in one lousy picture. And don't kid yourself, the IMF played a critical role in this wealth-shifting fiasco. It's job was to push for less public spending and deeper fiscal cuts while the Central Banks flooded the financial markets with liquidity (QE). The results are obvious, in fact, one of the Fed's own officials, Andrew Huszar, admitted that QE was a massive bailout for the rich. "I've come to recognize the program for what it really is," said Huszar who actually worked on the program, "the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time." There it is, straight from the horse's mouth.
So now the IMF wants to throw a little dust in everyone's eyes by making it look like it was a big goof-up by well-meaning but misguided bankers. And the media is helping them by its omissions.
Let me explain: Of the more than 455 articles on Google News covering the IMF's mea culpa, not one piece refers to the man who was the IMF's Managing Director at the time in question. Doesn't that strike you as a bit odd?
Why would the media scrub any mention of Dominique Strauss-Kahn from its coverage? Could it be that (according to NPR):

"The IMF's managing director wanted to give Greece, Portugal and Ireland the time needed to put their accounts in order, and he also argued for softening the austerity measures associated with the bailouts for those countries.
Greek economists say that under Strauss-Kahn's leadership, the IMF was a counterbalance to the strict austerity policies favored by northern European leaders. In fact, according to the daily Le Monde, Strauss-Kahn is fond of calling those who argue for tighter austerity "fous furieux," which roughly translates as "mad men."
Strauss-Kahn's view is that shock-therapy measures imposed on Greece and other European countries with sovereign debt crises will lead only to economic recession and severe social unrest.
Several commentators pointed out Monday that at a time of turmoil in the eurozone and division among European leaders, it was the IMF, under Strauss-Kahn's leadership, that kept the eurozone's rescue strategy on track.
The Financial Times said that the IMF's single most important influence in the resolution of the eurozone crisis was political amid a lack of political leadership, the paper said, the IMF filled a vacuum.
(IMF Chief's Arrest Renews Euro Debt Crisis Fears, NPR)

Ah-ha! So Strauss-Kahn wasn't on board with the IMF's shock doctrine prescription. In fact, he was opposed to it. So there were voices for sanity within the IMF, they just didn't prevail in the policy debate.
But why would that be, after all, Strauss-Kahn was the IMF's Managing Director, his views should have carried greater weight than anyone else's, right?
Right. Except DSK got the ax for a sexual encounter at New York's ritzy Sofitel Hotel. So the changes he had in mind never took place, which means that the distribution of wealth continued to flow upwards just like the moneybags constituents of the IMF had hoped for.
Funny how that works, isn't it? Funny how it's always the Elliot Spitzers, and the Scott Ritters, and the Dominique Strauss-Kahn's who get nailed for their dalliances, but the big Wall Street guys never get caught.
Why is that?
The fact is, Strauss-Kahn was off the reservation and no longer supported the policies that the establishment elites who run the IMF wanted to see implemented. They felt threatened by DSK's Keynesian approach and wanted to get rid of him. That's it in a nutshell.
Do you know why the bigwig plutocrats hated DSK?
It had nothing to do with his sexual acrobatics at the Sofitel Hotel. Nobody cares about that shite. What they were worried about were his plans for the IMF which he laid out in a speech he gave at the Brookings Institution in April 2011, one month before he got the boot. The speech got very little attention at the time, but for all practical purposes it was DSK's swan song. And, I think you'll see why.
The experience must have been a real shocker for the gaggle of tycoons and hangers-on who attend these typically-tedious gatherings. Instead of praise for "market discipline", "labor flexibility" and "fiscal consolidation", Strauss-Kahn delivered a rousing 30 minute tribute to leftist ideals and wealth-sharing sounding more like a young Leon Trotsky addressing the Forth International than a cold-hearted bureaucrat heading the world's most notorious loan sharking operation. By the time the speech ended, I'm sure the knives were already being sharped for the wayward Managing Director. To put it bluntly, DSK's goose was cooked. Here's a clip from the speech that will help to explain why:

"…The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes"…
Not everyone will agree with the entirety of this statement. But what we have learnt over time is that unemployment and inequality can undermine the very achievements of the market economy, by sowing the seeds of instability…
.. the IMF cannot be indifferent to distribution issues…
Today, we need a similar full force forward response in ensuring that we get the recovery we need. And that means not only a recovery that is sustainable and balanced among countries, but also one that brings employment and fair distribution…
But growth alone is not enough. We need direct labor market policies…
Let me talk briefly about the second lung of the social crisisinequality…IMF research also shows that sustainable growth over time is associated with a more equal income distribution…
We need policies to reduce inequality, and to ensure a fairer distribution of opportunities and resources. Strong social safety nets combined with progressive taxation can dampen market-driven inequality. Investment in health and education is critical. Collective bargaining rights are important, especially in an environment of stagnating real wages. Social partnership is a useful framework, as it allows both the growth gains and adjustment pains to be shared fairly…
We have also supported a tax on financial activities (and) organized jointly with the ILO … to better understand the policies behind job-creating growth…
Ultimately, employment and equity are building blocks of economic stability and prosperity, of political stability and peace. This goes to the heart of the IMF's mandate. It must be placed at the heart of the policy agenda. Thank you very much." (The Global Jobs Crisis Sustaining the Recovery through Employment and Equitable Growth, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director IMF, April 13, 2011)

Can you imagine the chorus of groans that must have emerged from the crowd when Strauss-Kahn made his pitch for "progressive taxation", "collective bargaining rights", "protecting social safety nets", "direct labor market policies" and "taxes on financial activities"? And how do you think the crowd reacted when he told them he'd settled on a more enlightened way to distribute the wealth they'd accumulated over a lifetime of insider trading, crooked backroom deals and shady business transactions?
Do you think they liked that idea or do you suppose they lunged for their blood pressure medication before scuttling pell-mell towards the exits?
Let's face it; Strauss-Kahn was headed in a direction that wasn't compatible with the interests of the cutthroats who run the IMF. That much is clear. Now whether these same guys concocted the goofy "honey trap" at the Sofitel Hotel, we may never know. But what we do know is this: If you're Managing Director of the IMF, you'd better not use your power to champion "distribution" or collective bargaining rights or you're wind up like Strauss-Kahn, dragged off to the hoosegow in manacles wondering where the hell you went wrong.
DSK was probably done-in by the people who hated his guts. Now they want to polish-up their image by rewriting history.
And, you know, they're rich enough to pull it off, too.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/25/t...t-the-imf/