Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, was convicted of negligence for the management of the arbitration concerning the Tapie Adidas affair. However, the director of the IMF was exempted from the sentence.
The sentence was issued by the Cour de justice of the République, the court of ministers in Paris. The story refers to the period in which Lagarde was Nicolas Sarkozy's economy minister (2007-2011).
According to the judges, the then minister would have favored Bernard Tapie, a controversial Marseille businessman, in the context of the arbitration that in 2008 ended the dispute over the ownership of the Adidas group and due to which the French state was forced to disburse 400 million euros.
During the hearings, Christine Lagarde herself admitted that she had not adequately exercised her supervisory power, claiming however that she had acted in total good faith.
In the meantime, from Washington, an IMF spokesman lets it be known that the board will meet shortly to evaluate the verdict of the Parisian judges.
