Corruption probe police raid home of IMF chief
THE home of International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde was raided by anticorruption police yesterday.
It follows claims that she authorised a £270million payout to a prominent Nicolas Sarkozy supporter when she was French finance minister.
It is not known what officers discovered or seized after entering the £1million Paris apartment of the world’s most senior banker.
The Court of Justice of the Republic, a tribunal qualified to judge the conduct of government ministers while in office, said Mrs Lagarde, 57, may have abused her position to help a controversial businessman.
The case dates back 20 years. Bernard Tapie, former head of Adidas in France, claims he was cheated out of millions by the then state-owned Credit Lyonnais bank when he sold his stake in the sports kit empire in 1993 for around £300million.
Within months the bank sold the company for more than twice that amount, which led to Tapie demanding compensation.
Mrs Lagarde is said to have allowed the equivalent of £270million in compensation to be awarded to Tapie in 2008 when Mr Sarkozy was French president and she was finance minister. Critics said the settlement was too generous.
Mrs Lagarde, whose annual salary as IMF managing director is £300,000, denies wrongdoing.
In 1997 Tapie, an ex-government minister, was jailed for match-fixing after owning one of France’s biggest football clubs, Olympique Marseilles.
Mrs Lagarde’s lawyer, Yves Repiquet, said: ‘This search will help uncover the truth [and will] help to exonerate my client from any criminal wrongdoing.’
But news of her home being visited by detectives is bound to have serious repercussions for her French presidential ambitions and the IMF.
Dominque Strauss-Kahn, another senior French politician, was sacked as IMF chief following allegations that he raped a chambermaid in a New York hotel two years ago.
Mrs Lagarde, who was in Frankfurt at the time of the police raid, is believed to be thinking of running in the 2017 presidential elections.
An IMF spokesman said its executive board had considered the Tapie issue when appointing Miss Lagarde and had been confident she would be able to do her job effectively.