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Christine Lagarde faces probe for fraud

Investigation against IMF boss by French court

Paris: Christine Lagarde, the chief of the International Monetary Fund, was placed under official investigation for negligence in a French corruption probe that dates back to her days as France’s finance minister. After a fourth round of questioning before magistrates on Wednesday, Ms Lagarde said she would return to her work in Washington later in the day and said in a statement the decision was “without basis.” She is the third IMF managing director in a decade to face legal troubles.

She and her former chief of staff face questions about their role in a 400 million-euro ($531 million) payment to a businessman with a checkered past. “After three years of proceedings, dozens of hours of questioning, the court found from the evidence that I committed no offense, and the only allegation is that I was not sufficiently vigilant,” she said in her statement. Under French law, the official investigation is equivalent to preliminary charges, meaning there is reason to suspect an infraction. Investigating judges can later drop a case or issue formal charges and send it to trial. The payment in question was awarded to Bernard Tapie in a dispute over the sale of his majority stake in sportswear company Adidas.

Mr Tapie sought to sell his stake in Adidas in the mid-1990s, asking bank Credit Lyonnais to handle the deal. He felt the sale was mishandled and brought suit against the bank, which at the time was owned by the French state. The case was handled through private arbitration, and Mr Tapie was awarded 400 million euros.

( Source : AP )
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