This week saw the start of a weeklong trial against International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde. The influential financer appeared in the docket of a Paris court on Monday. A special tribunal has been charged with determining if she is guilty of fraud in a case dating back to her time as French Finance Minister. The case involves Lagarde’s role in the fraudulent payout of a cool €405 million by the French state to unsavory businessman Bernard Tapie in 2008. Tapie, who had backed then-President Francois Sarkozy’s election campaign, was awarded the payout under Lagarde’s watch as finance minister after claiming to have been defrauded by a state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais in the 1990s into selling his stake in sports equipment company Adidas.
To access the complete article, please use this link: SPUTNIK