The trial of seven people, including a former LR vice-president of the Var departmental council and former deputy mayor of Toulon, for suspicion of favoritism and illegal taking of interest in the awarding of a contract for incinerator of some 500 million euros, opened this Monday, March 20 in Marseille.
The former elected Jean-Guy Di Giorgio chaired the Intermunicipal Syndicate of transport and waste treatment of the Toulon area (Sittomat), during the renewal in 2012 of the public service delegation for the operation of the incinerator of the Toulon conurbation, then owned by the Suez group.
Jean-Guy Di Giorgio is being prosecuted alongside the former director and technical director of Sittomat and three managers from the companies Pizzorno Environnement, Idex Environnement and the Zephire group, set up by these two manufacturers for this market.
They are accused of acts of favoritism, illegal taking of interests and misuse of company assets, or their concealment. Un seventh defendant, presented as close to the former director of the Sittomat, is prosecuted for concealment of favoritism, for having benefited from an architectural subcontracting contract.
The case had been triggered by anonymous information sent to the Toulon prosecutor’s office, information which had announced, even before the results of the call for tenders in October 2012, the award of this contract to Zéphire, a new player in the sector. The amount of the contract was 470 million euros over eighteen years.
In particular, the defendants of the pre-contract meetingswith invitations to the restaurant, and the “sponsorship” by one of the companies of the football club of which the director of the Sittomat was president.
This lawsuit also relates to other contracts of lesser amounts, all in the waste sector, for a total of approximately 500 million.
The Unbound brings together the agglomeration community of Toulon-Provence-Méditerranée as well as two communities of municipalities, South Sainte-Baume and Vallée du Gapeau, i.e. 26 municipalities and more than 500,000 inhabitants. It is the organization that processes all the waste.
Several companies, including Suez, are civil parties, and have announced their intention to seek some 50 million euros in damages.
Hearings are scheduled until March 31.
With AFP.
