At Laporte-Altrad trial, defense calls into question “the fantasy of corruptive pact”

The lawyers of the president of the French Rugby Federation, Bernard Laporte and the owner of the Montpellier club, Mohed Altrad, asked, Wednesday, their release in court.

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For almost ten hours, financial prosecutors, François-Xavier Dulin and Céline Guillet remained stoic, behind their computer screen. Not only once they reacted to the defense of the defense, Wednesday, September 21, on the last day of the trial of the barons of French rugby, including Bernard Laporte, the president of the French Federation (FFR), and the billionaire Mohed Altrad, owner of the Montpellier club and sponsor jersey of the XV of France.

In the aftermath of the shattering requisitions of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), which claimed a sentence of three years in prison, including a firm year, against the two main defendants, the defense lawyers have in turn pointed out the “inconsistencies”, “prejudices”, “flaws”, “drifts” and “excess” of the investigation and glossed on “the beams of clues” gleaned by the accusation for four years.

In front of the 32 e Chamber of the Paris Criminal Court, the lawyers of MM. Laporte and Altrad asked for the release and questioned “the fantasy of the corruptive pact” that the tandem would have sealed, according to the PNF. In question: an image contract, not executed ultimately and concluded for a period of one year, on February 19, 2017, for 180,000 euros (taxes between BL Communication, a company by M. Laporte, and Altrad Investment Authority (AIA), the holding company of the Altrad group.

“This contract poses an ethical question but it is not fictitious and does not make the basics of influence traffic, of a corruption pact,” insisted Mr. Altrad’s lawyer, Antoine Vey.

For the accusation, this conflict of interest would have led Mr. Laporte, once elected at the head of the FFR, to intervene on several occasions in favor of AIA or the Club de Montpellier.

“A chronology problem”

“We have falsely imputed these political and commercial interventions of the FFR to Mr. Laporte. We will qualify them as illegitimate, bias, abnormal or atypical: facts were however unpredictable with regard to the alleged pact Corruptif of February 2017 “, quipped Fanny Colin, the lawyer for the boss of the FFR, prosecuted for” illegal taking of interest “,” traffic of passive influence by a public agent “,” passive corruption by a public agent ” , “concealment of abuse of corporate goods”, “breach of trust” and “abuse of corporate goods”.

“In law, the causal link must be proven. There is no material element. There is a problem of chronology, temporal link”, observed M ^{e Antoine Vey, qualifying the PNF investigation as “Construction”, “manipulation” and “gaseous clusters”.}

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