France does not contest trial for ECB heir apparent (or whose markets are more tranparent ??)
July 17, 2002 01:11 PM ET
By Brian Love
PARIS, July 17 (Reuters) - France's justice minister said on Wednesday he would not contest an order that Bank of France boss Jean-Claude Trichet, for long the heir apparent to the European Central Bank presidency, stand trial.
Dominique Perben had the power to challenge a magistrate's decision to send Trichet to court over a banking scandal, a move which could have cut short his ordeal before the courts but could also have extended it.
Asked after a cabinet meeting if he would request an appeal against the trial, he replied tersely: "The answer is no."
France insists Trichet is entitled to succeed to the post when Dutchman Wim Duisenberg retires next July under a written "gentlemen's agreement" reached when Duisenberg won the job.
In a shock decision on Tuesday, magistrate Philippe Courroye said Trichet and a string of others should stand trial over the Credit Lyonnais banking scandal in the early 1990s, when Trichet was head of the Treasury, part of the French finance ministry.
Legal experts said an appeal by Perben would have raised the risk of a prolonged haul through the courts that could have snared Trichet beyond next July if the appeal ended up being rejected.
A court would first have had to rule on the merits of an appeal, pushing the trial itself back by several months if the appeal was dismissed, they said.
STAND-BY ALTERNATIVE TO TRICHET?
Should the government stick to the line signalled by Perben, the clock now starts ticking for a trial which could be wrapped up with a verdict delivered shortly before the time when he is supposed to take over from Duisenberg.
A trial date has yet to be set.
Legal experts say it would be standard to expect a trial to open by the start of 2003, with a verdict possible some time in the spring.
That would be very tight timing which might force France or other European governments to at least consider alternatives as a stand-by, even if French sources said on Tuesday that there was no change in Paris's position.
Courroye believes there are sufficient suspicions to merit a court ruling on alleged fraud in the presentation of Lyonnais's accounts in 1992, and on whether Trichet shares blame due to his duty as Treasury boss to keep checks on the running of the bank.
Former Lyonnais manager Jean-Yves Haberer and others are in the firing line on suspicion of presenting misleading financial results. In Trichet's case, it is a matter of letting a judge rule whether he turned a blind eye and thus shares in the blame.
French public prosecutors had originally recommended that Trichet not stand trial, but Courroye rejected their views.
Francois Foulon, deputy Paris public prosecutor, said that Courroye's assessment of the information gathered during many years of investigation differed from that of prosecutors and that it was not a difference in terms of points of law.
That diminished the grounds for an appeal, he said.
The decision by Courroye, a dogged judicial investigator who is also pursuing the son of late President Francois Mitterrand over arms sales to Angola, wreaked havoc with President Jacques Chirac's designs on the ECB.
Chirac fought to get Trichet named in May 1998 as ECB head but ultimately settled for a deal with other EU leaders to award the job to a French citizen when Duisenberg stepped down.
The wording of the deal says "a French person", which Chirac can take as a ticket to come up with an alternative if needed.
Trichet met Chirac for 40 minutes on Wednesday to present the Bank of France's annual report. He refused to comment on the judge's decision as he left the Elysee presidential palace.
"I never make any comment on this issue," Trichet told reporters. |
