The magistrates have reclaimed the reproached offense to the former director of chief of Christine Lagarde at the Ministry of the Economy negligence rather than complicity in embezzlement of public funds.
This is perhaps the last judicial ricochet linked to the Tapie arbitration: the Paris Court of Appeal sentenced Stéphane Richard on Monday, June 30 to six months in prison suspended, in the controversial sentence of 2008 between Bernard Tapie and Crédit Lyonnais. This decision comes after a week’s postponement, linked to a power failure that affected the courthouse.
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.
His conviction in November 2021 had cost him his post at the head of the historic telephone operator: alongside three other defendants, Stéphane Richard had been 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 the senior official Jean-François Rocchi, former manager of the realization consortium (CDR), entity responsible for managing the liabilities of Crédit Lyonnais.
“Triumph” the “Tapie part”
Stéphane Richard, 63, was implicated because he was at the time director of cabinet of the Minister of the Economy, Christine Lagarde. 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, the former minister being sentenced to reimburse.
Six men, including the ex-boss of Olympique de Marseille, suspected of having “Trucked” Arbitration had been tried but released at first instance. On appeal in 2021, the court had decided in the opposite direction, believing that the arbitration had been well biased for “Triumph” the “Tapie game”. Subsequently, the Court of Cassation definitively validated the condemnations for the scam of the historic lawyer of Bernard Tapie, Maurice Lantourne, and one of the three referees who had written the sentence, Pierre Estoup, as well as the release of an official.
Guilty of “negligence”
Concerning Stéphane Richard and Jean-François Rocchi, on the other hand, the high court noted that they could not be sentenced to complicity in the embezzlement of public funds, insofar as the Court of Appeal had, in its decision, recognized that they “Ignored the fraudulent character of arbitration”.
In this dossier at the drawers, Christine Lagarde had been found guilty of “neglect” But exempt from sentence in 2016 by the Court of Justice of the Republic – the sole authorized to judge the ministers for acts committed in office. The CDR told AFP to have recovered, on June 2025, 246 million euros on a total debt which amounted, with interest and legal costs, to 700 million in 2023.
