French judges have decided not to initiate an investigation against the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, regarding her role in the payment of 285 million euros to supporters of former President Sarkozy.
For a full two days, she was questioned in court in Paris about the case from 2008, when, as Minister of Finance, she decided that the legal battle between the French state and businessman Bernard Tapie should be resolved through arbitration. Instead of an investigation, the court decided to grant Lagarde the status of ‘supervised witness’.
This resolves a significant issue for Lagarde, who is the only representative of France in a leadership position at an international institution, as well as for the IMF, for which an official investigation against her would be very uncomfortable.
