Two long-running legal cases were finally wrapped up this
month.
After five days of hearings by the Cour de Justice de la
République (CJR), which judges wrongdoing by government officials, Christine Lagarde was
found guilty of the charge of "negligence by a person in a position of
public authority" but spared the potential penalty of a one-year prison
term and a fine. The public prosecutor had recommended acquittal based on a
"weak" case. Lagarde stood accused of mishandling the arbitration of
Bernard Tapie vs the partly state-owned Crédit Lyonnais bank when she allowed
a payoff of more than €400 million with public funds in 2008 while she was Finance
Minister under president Nicolas Sarkozy (see blog 12/21/15).
The lead judge of the CJR, which is made up of three judges
and 12 members of parliament, said the sentence was dropped in consideration of
the exceptional circumstances of Lagarde's difficult job as Finance Minister
during the financial crisis of 2008 and of her strong reputation. The court saw
no objection to her acceptance of arbitration but felt she should have
contested the excessive payout, as the Treasury had recommended at the time.
The matter of Tapie vs CL had originated in 1994 and after
some 14 years of litigation ended on Lagarde's desk when Tapie asked for
arbitration to bring this case to a conclusion. The three arbitrators found in
favor of Tapie who was awarded €403 million, to be paid from public funds since
the CL bank had since gone bankrupt. This huge award of taxpayers' money and
rumors of the doubtful neutrality of one of the arbitrators caused the
Socialist opposition party to demand a special investigation, and in 2015 the
Paris appeals court annulled the award and ordered Tapie to repay.
Back in Washington after the grueling week-long trial in
Paris, Christine Lagarde commented that she was not satisfied with the judgment
but needed to put this five-year ordeal behind her and focus fully on her work
as head of the IMF. Following the verdict, the IMF Board immediately expressed
its "full confidence in the managing director's ability to effectively
continue to carry out her duties".
Although some experts agree that the legal case against her
was weak, the matter was politically sensitive. As a person close to Lagarde
said: "You have to take into account the long-running resentment of the
judiciary power against the executive power, and the political dynamic among
the MPs, between the left and the right." President Hollande's statement
that "the judiciary is an institution of cowards" as quoted in the
book A President Should Not Say That…
(blog 12/05/16) is still ringing in our ears.
Pierre Le Guennec
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| Pierre Le Guennec |
Last week the Appeals Court of Aix-en-Provence upheld the
verdict of the 2-year suspended prison sentence against Mr. and Mrs. Le Guennec
pronounced by the criminal court in Grasse in 2015 in the case brought by the
Picasso Administration for theft of artwork (blog 11/03/16). Pierre le
Guennec, 77,who had been Picasso's electrician for a number of years,
claimed that the 271 unsigned drawings in his possession were a gift from
Picasso's widow Jacqueline, but the court found his testimony not credible.
This verdict effectively spells the end of a 6-year saga that began in 2010,
when Le Guennec took some of the unsigned drawings to Claude Picasso in Paris for
authentication.
I attended the reading of the verdict and was struck by the
fact that Le Guennec was alone, without his wife, who is seriously ill, but
also without his lawyer Eric Dupond-Moretti. The latter takes on mostly high-profile cases and rarely misses an opportunity to be seen and heard on television. His assistant Antoine Vey did not
attend either. The Picasso Administration, on the other hand, was represented by
two lawyers.The presiding judge read the verdict in a rapid monotone,
citing several fines to be paid by defendants according to Articles X or Y,
then said "Do you understand, Mr. Le Guennec?" and that was it. Le
Guennec's response, if any, had been inaudible but plaintiffs' lawyers packed
up their briefcases and rushed out to meet the press, as the judge moved on to
the next case. Barely three minutes had passed.
I walked out with Le Guennec and asked him if he knew the
Articles the judge had been referring to. He said No, nor did he seem to know
why his lawyer was not there. Clearly, Dupond-Moretti's line of defense of the
simple but honest little guy who receives a gift that he carefully stores and
protects for 40 years before asking for authentication from Claude Picasso did
not convince. The plaintiffs' argument that Le Guennec and his wife were part
of a sophisticated ring of art thieves won out. Defendant did not have a signed
receipt for the gift from Jacqueline Picasso and, besides, had lied during the
first trial and could therefore not be believed on anything else. No further
evidence needed. Case closed.
In the cold light of the law there may be no such thing as
an outright gift made to a faithful servant by a deeply despondent woman who
later kills herself. It was known that Jacqueline hated Claude Picasso and she
may have wanted to hide the box of uncatalogued artwork from Claude. Even
Jacqueline's daughter considered that scenario not impossible, until she
changed her mind later. And who can say for sure that
Jacqueline did not gave other unregistered artwork away? Why did Le Guennec wait 40 years before
seeking authentication if he was part of an organization of art thieves? Is proof of guilt not just as important as proof of innocence?
My close-up view of this case has left me with some
unanswered questions, and with one certainty: the best lawyer always
wins. But is it justice?
And Then It Was Christmas...
… and time to wish you Happy Holidays and a new year of PEACE for all mankind.
Far-fetched, you think? Let's just dream a little, especially at this time.
