Tapie in happier days...
In France, judicial issues are constantly in the news, including business trials. One
of them interests me particularly: the trial of Bernard Tapie concerning the
Adidas controversy.
Bernard Tapie is a French businessman.
He made his fortune by buying up big companies in crisis, downsizing them, making
them successful again before selling them on.
Bernard Tapie also wanted to be a
politician. He was told that he first needed to put on hold his business dealings,
which is what he did. He decided to sell Adidas. He asked his bank, the Crédit
Lyonnais, to find a buyer. His bank told him that someone wanted to buy this
company for two billion Francs. In fact, it is the bank itself that bought
Adidas and then sold it to another businessman, Robert Louis Dreyfus, for 4.4
billion Francs without Tapie's knowledge.
A long trial took place, including at
the court of appeal of Douai. After several long years, Christine Lagarde, the Finance Minister,
decided in 2008 that arbitration was necessary. It led to a compensation of 404
million Euros for Tapie by the Finance Ministry. At the end of 2015, Bernard Tapie was told to repay the money
that he had received…
He announced after this that he
wanted to get back into politics once again to fight against unemployment; he
even said that he would run for the French presidency in 2017.
Will another trial take place? Will his
comeback in politics be a success? That's what we'll find out in the following
months...
Thomas
LAFONT wants to become a business lawyer.
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