Christine Lagarde, attributed by a corruption case as minister of Sarkozy

Christine Lagarde, last July. / ANDREW TAME (BLOOMBERG)

The French justice has been charged with "gross negligence" to the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde, of 58 years for their involvement in the so-called Tapie case when she was Minister of Economy of Nicolas Sarkozy. The matter which is investigated Lagarde, who has declared to the Agence France Presse that not she will resign from his post, is the award in 2008 of EUR 403 million that the government of Sarkozy signed as a remedy for the alleged losses suffered by the businessman Bernard Tapie, friend of the then president of the Republic, in the sale of Adidas by Crédit Lyonnais. The amount of public aid to Tapie was decided by a committee of arbitration that the judge Serge Tournaire has qualified in the past of "mock arbitration". The Tapie case is one of the various scandals of alleged corruption that pursue to Nicolas Sarkozy. In the framework of the research, the judges have already accused five persons for alleged fraud of organized gang. This is the own Bernard Tapie, the beneficiaries of public assistance, his lawyer Maurice Lantourne, one of the three judges who were involved in the arbitration commission, Pierre Estoup, the madrigal cabinet of Lagarde Stéphane Richard and jean-francois Rocchi, president at the time of the consortium managing the funds of the Crédit Lyonnais. Lagarde, who appeared for the fourth time in the courts as a witness on Tuesday in the framework of these investigations, was indicted by the night and has declared that, in addition to not resign from his post, will appeal the court decision. The imputation puts in a delicate situation the political career of Lagarde. In the late afternoon, Lagarde has declared to the BFM tv chain that was returning immediately to Washington to resume his work and that is "unfounded" the indictment of not having been vigilant about the procedure of awarding a public aid to Tapie, adding that during three years of research had been reached to the conclusion that she had not committed any irregularity.

The Tapie case is messy and has been chasing to Sarkozy and his minister Lagarde from years ago. French billionaire Bernard Tapie, one of the largest fortunes in the country, sold in 1993 Adidas to semi-public bank Credit Lyonnais. It was the condition imposed by François Mitterrand for pitches as minister. The little time, the bank sold Adidas getting some substantial capital gains, which led to Tapie to denounce the case and obtain, in the first instance, a repair of EUR 135 million for damages plus interest. The Supreme Court, however, overturned this decision. In 2008, his great friend Nicolas Sarkozy, for which he had called the vote a year earlier, recovered more than with the businessman of the alleged losses. Its Ministry of Economy has formed a "court of arbitration" and decided to give this Tapie 403 million euros by the lawsuit, which outraged a great part of citizenship. In the framework of the criminal investigation, the prosecution charged in 2011 by Lagarde of having chosen a private mediation instead of resorting to the courts that would have made for greater neutrality to the process. The critic also by "knowing the bias of two of the three arbitrators" involved in the mediation and to include the figure of the "moral damages", which further favored the interests of Tapie.