PARIS: IMF chief Christine Lagarde arrived in court yesterday to be questioned by a French magistrate over her role in a ¤285m ($366m) arbitration payment made to a supporter of former president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Lagarde risks being placed under formal investigation at the hearing for her 2007 decision as Sarkozy’s finance minister to use arbitration to settle a long-running court battle between the state and high-profile businessman Bernard Tapie.
Under French law, that step would mean there exists “serious or consistent evidence” pointing to probable implication of a suspect in a crime.
It is one step closer to trial but a number of such investigations have been dropped without any trial.
Such a move could prove uncomfortable for the International Monetary Fund, whose former head, Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, quit in 2011 over a sex assault scandal, and for a woman voted the most influential in France by Slate magazine. Reuters
