Lhe Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) on Friday closed their judicial investigation targeting the former Budget Minister Éric Woerth, suspected of having granted a disputed tax boost to Bernard Tapie after the controversial arbitration of his conflict with Credit Lyonnais. The commission of instruction of the CJR, the only jurisdiction authorized to prosecute and judge ministers for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions, closed on Friday the judicial investigation opened in 2019, according to the general prosecutor’s office at the Court of Cassation. .
Éric Woerth, chairman of the Finance Committee at the National Assembly (ex-LR past in the Macron camp), has been indicted since July 2021 in this case for “misappropriation”, in this case the granting of a undue tax benefit. He is suspected of having granted a tax rebate to Bernad Tapie, who died last October of cancer, after the controversial arbitration of his conflict with Crédit Lyonnais.
The public prosecutor now has three months to submit its submissions, and the defense an additional month to make observations, before a final decision by the CJR’s investigating committee on whether or not Mr. Woerth should be referred to the court. from the same CJR. “I am waiting for the requisitions, I am confident”, reacted to Agence France-Presse Éric Woerth. “I’m sure of my arguments, it’s a complicated matter of tax law,” he added.
Controversial arbitration
“The intentions of the Minister of the Budget at the time have always been pure and tended to find a fair solution and in accordance with the law”, for his part commented on his lawyer, Mr.e Jean-Yves Le Borgne. As part of the arbitration rendered in 2008 and since canceled in civil proceedings, Bernard Tapie was awarded 403 million euros to settle his dispute with Crédit Lyonnais over the sale of Adidas. Part of the money was paid to Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT), one of the holding companies of the former president of Olympique de Marseille.
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For the tax authorities, the money paid to GBT should be taxed under corporation tax (33.3%), but the Tapie camp demanded the application of the much more favorable capital gains regime. (1.67%). Finally, in a letter dated April 2, 2009, Éric Woerth’s cabinet had decided to tax two-thirds of the allowance at 1.67% and the remaining third at 33.3%.
To examine the possible responsibilities of people other than the minister, the Paris public prosecutor’s office had opened a judicial investigation in March 2016, following a letter from the Attorney General at the Court of Auditors, Gilles Johanet, sent to Bercy then to Justice. In his letter, this high magistrate wondered about “the very favorable conditions of taxation” granted by Éric Woerth to Bernard Tapie. A source familiar with the matter noted at the time that the solution proposed by the tax authorities would have resulted in a tax payment of 100 million euros and that GBT had ultimately paid 11 million euros.
Pursued several times
Already prosecuted several times but never convicted, the former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy had already been the subject of an investigation by the CJR for the controversial sale of the racecourse of Compiègne (Oise) in 2010. Suspected of “illegal taking of interests”, the former mayor of Chantilly (1995-2017) had obtained a dismissal at the end of 2014 in this file. He was also acquitted in 2015 of several charges in the Bettencourt case.
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In addition to the Tapie affair, another threat of trial weighs on Éric Woerth: former treasurer of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign, he has been indicted since 2018 for “illegal election campaign financing”, in the investigation into suspicions of Libyan financing of this election. Regarding arbitration, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled last November that it had been the subject of a “fraud” and sentenced in November four defendants, including the boss of Orange Stéphane Richard who left the group since.
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