A French prosecutor has said the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, should stand trial for her handling of a massive state payout to tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2008 when she was France’s finance minister, reports The Guardian.
The prosecutor recommended on Friday the rejection of Lagarde’s challenge to a December court order for her to stand trial for negligence in the affair, which saw Tapie receive €404m (£339m) in taxpayer money. The ruling is expected on 22 July.
If the order is upheld, Lagarde, 60, will be tried in the Cour de Justice de la République, which handles cases of ministerial misconduct.
Lagarde was placed under formal investigation in 2014 for negligence in a protracted legal drama pitting Tapie against a bank that he accused of defrauding him during his sale of sports clothing corporation Adidas in the 1990s.
Lagarde, who faces a year in jail if convicted, as well as a fine of €15,000, has denied wrongdoing and that she acted on the orders of the president at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy.
She was finance minister under Sarkozy in 2008 when she decided to allow arbitration in the dispute between Tapie and partly state-owned Credit Lyonnais.