ERIC PIERMONT / AFP
Stéphane Richard, here speaking for the last time at the general assembly of the Orange group in Paris, on May 19, 2022.
Justice – A court decision 17 years after the start of a sprawling case. The Paris Court of Appeal sentenced Orange Richard on Monday, June 30, June 30, June 30, June 30, in a suspended sentence of six months, in what is perhaps the last ricochet in the 2008 controversial arbitration affair between Bernard Tapie and Crédit Lyonnais.
At the end of this third trial and as suggested by the Advocate General of the Court of Cassation, the magistrates required the alleged offense to the former director of Cabinet of Christine Lagarde to the Ministry of the Economy negligence rather than complicity in the embezzlement of public funds. Stéphane Richard was also sentenced to a fine of 15,000 euros fine.
He had been reached in March-April alongside the senior official Jean-François Rocchi, former manager of the realization consortium (CDR), an entity responsible for managing the liabilities of Crédit Lyonnais, which was also sentenced to a sentence of six months suspended for negligence as well as a fine of 8,000 euros.
An “accumulation of negligence”
The court noted “The accumulation of negligence” committed by the defendants, said the president. “The facts are serious” et “Reveal a behavior in which the interest, in particular financial, of the State is not the priority”he said, however taking into account that they had never been previously sentenced.
“The court criticized me for having committed negligence in the preparatory phase at the entry into arbitration, which I dispute deeply”reacted to AFP Stéphane Richard, 63, who came to attend the rendering of the decision. “It seems to me to seriously ignore the exact role and the responsibilities resulting from a cabinet director in a ministry like Bercy”he continued, adding that he was going for these reasons “Seriously study an appeal in cassation”.
His conviction in November 2021 had cost him his post at the head of the historic telephone operator: alongside three other defendants, Stéphane Richard was inflicted a year in prison suspended and 50,000 euros fine for complicity in the embezzlement of public funds. But in June 2023, the Court of Cassation partially canceled the decision and ordered a new trial for him and for Jean-François Rocchi.
This affair stems from the conflict between Bernard Tapie, who died in 2021, and Crédit Lyonnais, around the acquisition of the German equipment supplier Adidas in the 1990s. Private arbitration had proven Bernard Tapie right in 2008 and granted him more than 400 million euros. But this controversial sentence had then been canceled in civilian «Fraud» In 2015.
