MSC-Macron's chief of staff charged with conflict of interest

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Published on Monday, 03 October 2022 17:27
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Alexis Kohler is under investigation for professional and family links to Italian-Swiss shipping company MSC.

 

Le Monde with AFP

 

Published on October 3, 2022 at 17h37

The top official in French President Emmanuel Macron's office has been charged with a conflict of interest while in office, the chief financial crimes prosecutor said Monday, October 3.

Alexis Kohler, who holds one of France's most powerful jobs as Elysee secretary-general, is accused over his professional and family links with Italian-Swiss shipping company MSC which is run by his mother's cousins.

 

On Monday, he "categorically denied any wrongdoing", his lawyer said in a statement, while an official in Mr. Macron's office said Mr. Kohler remained in his post.

In 2018, Anticor, an anti-corruption NGO, filed a legal complaint against Mr. Kohler for illegal influence-peddling concerning contracts awarded to MSC in 2010 and 2011.

 

Mr. Kohler allegedly failed to notify his family connection with MSC to the French agency for public investment, where he worked at the time.

 

French court orders trial for justice minister over conflicts of interest

Eric Dupond-Moretti intends to appeal against the decision which would make him the first minister in office to be tried by the Court of Justice of the Republic, a special jurisdiction.

By Jean-Baptiste Jacquin

Published on October 3, 2022 at 10h57, updated at 16h14 on October 3, 2022





rench Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti during a press conference in Paris, September 27, 2022. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP

For the first time ever, a sitting minister could be tried by the French Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), a special jurisdiction designed to judge current or former ministers for crimes or offenses committed while in office. Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti was served his referral to this criminal court on Monday, October 3, by the judges from the investigating committee to be tried for conflicts of interest. The offense is punishable by five years in prison and a fine of 500,000 euros. The decision stemming from a procedure opened in January 2021 is anything but a surprise. But it may make the justice minister's position increasingly uncomfortable.

The minister intends to appeal this decision, meaning a trial is unlikely to be held before the end of 2023. Mr. Dupond-Moretti has always suggested that he would not resign, repeating that he holds his legitimacy from the president. Tuesday, September 27, when presenting his ministry's budget for 2023, he said that the procedure in which he was indicted in July 2021 "has never prevented him from working." But the CJR's investigating committee, which consists of three high-ranking judges, considers that the charges make up an illegal conflict of interests.

Settling accounts

The justice minister is accused of having ordered the General Inspectorate of Justice to conduct administrative investigations, a preliminary step to disciplinary proceedings, against magistrates with whom he had butted heads as a lawyer. Anti-corruption organization Anticor and the two main magistrates' unions, the Union Syndicale des Magistrats and the Syndicat de la Magistrature, filed a complaint with the CJR in the fall of 2020, accusing the minister of having used his prerogatives to settle his accounts.

 

The first case concerns judge Edouard Levrault in Nice, who was formerly an investigating judge in Monaco. After being abruptly re-assigned away from Monaco in the summer of 2019, the judge was questioned on TV channel France 3 in June 2020 about the reasons behind this transfer. He claimed it was because of the investigation he was leading around the Rybolovlev-Bouvier scandal, a case of fraud on the sale of paintings. Mr. Levrault specifically mentioned the judicial police boss, who he had opened an investigation into.

As the policeman's lawyer, Mr. Eric Dupond-Moretti announced he had filed a complaint on behalf of his client against Mr. Levrault for "violation of the secrecy of an investigation", denouncing "cowboy" methods. The Principality of Monaco also denounced such a violation to then-justice minister Nicole Belloubet. At the minister's request, Mr. Levrault was summoned by his superiors but refused to explain himself. The lawyer, who became minister on July 6, 2020, referred the matter to the Inspectorate on July 30. The disciplinary procedure subsequently initiated against Mr. Levrault led to a decision by the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) on September 15, 2022, saying that he had not committed any disciplinary fault.

The second case concerns magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), whose methods the current minister also denounced. He filed a complaint in June 2020 for "violation of privacy and secrecy of correspondence" regarding the preliminary investigation opened to find the mole who was thought to have informed former president Nicolas Sarkozy or his lawyer Thierry Herzog that they were being bugged, as part of the judicial investigation into suspicions of campaign financing from Libya. The investigators then scrutinized the phone records of several lawyers, including Mr. Dupond-Moretti.

 

Faced with the outcry raised by this case, Ms. Belloubet referred the matter to the justice inspectorate for an "operational investigation" into the way this preliminary investigation had been conducted by the PNF. According to the report submitted on September 15, 2020 to the new justice minister, nothing illegal was done in this procedure, but dysfunctions were noted within the PNF. Three days later, the Ministry of Justice ordered a pre-disciplinary investigation against three PNF magistrates, including its former head, Eliane Houlette, and Patrice Amar, who had followed the investigations involving Mr. Sarkozy.

Extraordinary case

Mr. Dupond-Moretti has always denied having been in a conflict of interest in these cases, considering himself untied from the Levrault case, since he was no longer the lawyer of the Monegasque policeman, and from the PNF case, having withdrawn his complaint as soon as he joined the government on July 6, 2020. But to prevent additional situations of the sort, a decree signed on October 23, 2020, transferred to the prime minister all decisions concerning magistrates and cases with which Mr. Dupond-Moretti was involved as a lawyer.

This extraordinary case was marked by a spectacular police search of the Ministry of Justice on July 1, 2021. The ex-lawyer keeps repeating that the procedure is only caused by the magistrates' unions wanting to challenge his legitimacy as minister. He refused to answer the questions from the investigating magistrates on March 3, despite his indictment, and leaked the reproaches he made to them. "Everything in the conduct of your investigation demonstrates your determination not to establish the truth about allegations that you have taken for granted, but to sully the reputation of a former lawyer whose only trial you are interested in, that of his illegitimacy to hold the office of Minister of Justice," he told them.

 

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The debate will now change in nature before the CJR, whose judgment panel is composed of twelve members of parliament and three judges. Mr. Dupond-Moretti will find it difficult to continue to deny that he was in a conflict of interest situation. All the more so as the respected CSM has written that the minister put himself in an "objective situation of conflict of interest" in the case concerning judge Levrault. The question will be whether he simply followed the advice of his administration in procedures initiated by his predecessor. To find him guilty, it will be necessary to prove criminal intent.

Jean-Baptiste Jacquin

Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.