Two senior officials and former superiors of Alexis Kohler were indicted on February 9 for “complicity in the illegal taking of interests” in the investigation into the links of the secretary general of the Elysée with the shipowner MSC, specified the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) on Monday March 13, confirming information from theprogram “Complementary investigation” (France 2).
In this case, Mr. Kohler, indicted for “illegal taking of interests” in September without judicial review, is suspected of having “participated” between 2009 and 2016 to decisions relating to the shipowner MSC, a group belonging to members of his family.
Bruno Bézard and Jean-Dominique Comolli, successive bosses between 2007 and 2010 then between 2010 and 2012 of the Agence des participations de l’Etat (APE), were Mr. Kohler’s superiors when he was a director of STX France ( today Chantiers de l’Atlantique) and the Grand Port maritime du Havre (GPMH), both linked to MSC. No judicial review has been ordered against them, the PNF said in response to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The APE is in charge of “property interests” public power: it embodies and carries out the missions of the State shareholder and is responsible for managing its portfolio of holdings in different structures. In front of the magistrates, the secretary general of the Elysée assured, during an interrogation revealed by AFP, to have “never considered to be in a situation of conflict of interest”.
Family ties to MSC
But he also explained that he had not taken part in any decision concerning the group, at the time STX-GPMH; having informed his hierarchy of his family ties; having asked to leave his mandate as director of STX; and having expressed in its votes in the board of directors the position of the State rather than its own.
MSC: a major investor in France
The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) is an Italian company under Swiss law, founded in the Neapolitan region in 1970 by Rafaela and Gianluigi Aponte. A family structure which has become in less than fifty years the number two in the maritime transport of goods. Its fleet of 490 container ships delivers cargo to 500 ports around the world. The group also operates cruises across the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Still managed today by the Aponte couple, MSC employs 70,000 people and generates 27 billion euros in turnover.
One of the group’s subsidiaries, Terminal Investment Limited, operates 34 port terminals in 22 countries, including France, where it controls two terminals at the port of Le Havre. Above all, the group is historically a major customer for the Saint-Nazaire shipyards, for which the shipowner recently signed an order for three liners worth 3.4 billion euros.
Bruno Bézard, who will be 60 years old on May 13, former major of the National School of Administration (ENA) and polytechnician, spent twenty-eight years at Bercy and held the most prestigious position there, that of general manager. of the Treasury, to which he was appointed under the Hollande quinquennium. After seeing a dozen ministers pass, he left the post and the public service in the spring of 2016, to create an investment fund between Europe and China.
Jean-Dominique Comolli worked in the cabinets of the socialists Laurent Fabius and Michel Charasse, and also in the tobacco industry. “In the end, it is above all [nous-même] who should be prosecuted, since it was we who imposed [à M. Kohler] to stay “ administrator of STX, he said in a hearing about him and that of Mr. Bézard. ” Eventually, [le secrétaire général de l’Elysée] was more aware of the problem than we were. »
Me Jean-Baptiste Soufron, lawyer for Anticor, civil party in this case, considered with AFP that it was “a good thing that the investigation is advancing in particular on this point since Mr. Kohler has regularly and publicly declared that he had warned his superiors”.
“Therefore, the question that arises is whether they organized his deportation together or if they simply covered up, in which case this could make them accomplices to an offense”according to M.e Soufron. “The same question will also arise for all those who claim to have been informed”he added to AFP.
Lexicon
- Illegal taking of interest
Defined in article 432-12 of the penal code, the offense of illegal taking of interests is “the fact, by a person holding public authority or charged with a public service mission (…)to take, receive or retain, directly or indirectly, any interest whatsoever in a company or in an operation for which it is, at the time of the act, in whole or in part, responsible for ensuring the supervision, administration, liquidation or payment”.
Influence peddling is defined, in article 433-2, as “the fact, by anyone, of soliciting or accepting (…) offers, promises, donations, gifts or benefits of any kind, for himself or for others, to abuse or have abused his real or supposed influence in order to obtain from an authority or a public administration distinctions, jobs, markets or any other favorable decision”. These two offenses are punishable by five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 euros.