It is a slap in the face for both French businessman Vincent Bolloré and the French financial crimes prosecution unit the Parquet National Financier (PNF). On Friday February 26th a court in Paris refused to approve a plea bargain agreement that had been thrashed out between the billionaire and prosecutors at the PNF. The deal had been intended to bring an end to a judicial investigation opened back in 2012 into Bolloré's alleged corruption of two African presidents in exchange for extending the businessman's concession at the port of Lomé in Togo in West Africa.
Vincent Bolloré, who is 68, had managed to negotiate a fine of 375,000 for corruption, an offence he acknowledged during the hearing last week. The offence is punishable by up to ten years imprisonment. But the president of the criminal division at the court in Paris, Isabelle Prévost-Desprez, then ruled that this penalty was insufficient given the seriousness of the offences and the high-profile nature of the accused. Vincent Bolloré is the 17th wealthiest person in France and controls the media group Vivendi, its television subsidiaries Canal+ et CNews, the communications group Havas and a logistics empire in Africa.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
As a result of the judge's ruling the case will now go back to the judges who have been investigating the affair. It will be up to them to decide whether or not to send Bolloré for trial at a criminal court. He is currently under formal investigation, which is one step short of being charged.
Contacted by Mediapart, neither Vincent Bolloré nor his lawyer Olivier Baratelli commented on the judge's ruling. Prosecutors at the PNF also declined to comment.
It is the first time that the Paris courts have slapped down the PNF over a plea bargain. Normally the hearing to validate such a deal is a mere formality. Indeed, as the businessman's lawyer Olivier Baratelli entered the courtroom last Friday for the hearing before the judge to approve the deal he was evidently pleased at what he considered was going to be an “extremely satisfying” outcome. “You can't see the smiles because of the mask but you can surmise them,” he said.
But nothing went as planned.
When he had first been placed under investigation in the case in April 2018 Vincent Bolloré had issued a statement referring to the claims as “baseless accusations”. But in the end he preferred to plead guilty and negotiate a punishment with the Parquet National Financier (PNF) rather than risk losing at a trial which could have had serious consequences for his business group.
When a company is found guilty of corruption it can lose the right to obtain public contracts, depending on the law in the countries concerned. “This would have dealt a very serious blow to the Bolloré group,” said someone close to the case. This is especially true in Africa where the group's logistical business depends in large measure on public concessions.
However, since a law known as Sapin II came into force in 2016, companies can take advantage of what is called a 'public interest judicial agreement' or CJIP. This procedure allows them to negotiate a financial penalty without acknowledging their guilt. In the corruption case involving Togo the Bolloré group negotiated a 12 million euro fine, which is around double the estimated profits for the length of the concession.
But the CJIP procedure does not apply to individuals, who in this case are Vincent Bolloré, the group's number two Gilles Alix and Havas's international director Jean-Philippe Dorent.
At last week's hearing the head of the PNF, Jean-François Bohnert, said that it had been agreed to “sort out the cases involving the business and the three individuals at the same time” via negotiations that went “down to the wire” but which he said were held in a “consensual” manner as befitted a plea bargain.
In the end, and though corruption and breach of trust can attract prison terms of up to ten and three years respectively, the PNF agreed that Vincent Bolloré and his two executives should receive maximum fines of 375,000 euros each. This was not even going to appear on their criminal record. For Bolloré such a sum is painless; according to Challenges magazine he has a personal fortune of 5.7 billion euros.
Jean-François Bohnert told the court the agreement was a “win-win”. Yet the sanction was far short of the four years imprisonment – two suspended - the PNF had called for in the trial last December of Nicolas Sarkozy in the so-called 'Bismuth affair' (with the court ultimately handing down a three-year sentence, with two years suspended). The PNF's deputy prosecutor Aurélien Létocart justified the lack of a demand for a prison sentence - “even a suspended one” - on the grounds that the events concerned had taken place some time ago and that the case was subject to a wider deal that included the Bolloré group.
The president of the court, Isabelle Prévost-Desprez, first of all approved the CJIP procedure deal with the Bolloré group. Then she called Vincent Bolloré to the stand to ask him if he still acknowledged his guilt in relation to “corruption” and “collusion in breach of trust”. He replied: “Yes, madame president.”
His right-hand man Gilles Alix then pleaded guilty to “corruption” and “breach of trust”, and the Havas executive Jean-Philippe Dorent admitted “collusion in breach of trust”.
Then came the dramatic twist: Isabelle Prévost-Desprez refused to approve the plea bargain deal for the three men. In relation to Vincent Bolloré the judge said that the “penalty … is inadequate with regard to the circumstances of the offence”, given the facts of the case - the corruption of a foreign president - and the personality of Vincent Bolloré, the boss of a very large company which “represents France abroad”.
The judge went on to say that the case “needed” to be heard at a public trial. That decision is now down to the judges who carried out the original investigation.
The outcome is a bitter pill for Vincent Bolloré who has now publicly acknowledged his guilt without getting the benefit of the compromise deal negotiated with the PNF. This public admission of guilt will be even harder to swallow for a man who is usually very sensitive when it come to issues of personal honour. He has taken out numerous 'gagging' orders against journalists who dare to investigate his African activities, including against Mediapart (see here). In fact, in 2020 the Bolloré group was found guilty of abuse of process against a journalist from public broadcaster France Inter.
For a long time during the judicial investigation into the Lomé affair Bolloré denied any responsibility, before “acknowledging” it in the end. This was probably because the case, whose contents were revealed by Le Monde, appears to have been watertight.
The affair began in 2009. Faure Gnassingbé had already been president of Togo for four years following the death of his father, the dictator Gnassingbé Eyadéma. Faure Gnassingbé came to power on the back of a widely-disputed election in which the opposition had been repressed during the campaign and in which soldiers had gone in to the voting stations on election day to collect the ballots.
However, the next election was scheduled for 2010 and this time the sitting president wanted to be elected in rather less controversial circumstances. He sought out the services of the public relations branch of Havas (at the time called Euro RSCG), which was run by a well-known spin doctor Stéphane Fouks and under the control of the Bolloré group. The group also had the concession at the port in Togo's capital Lomé.
The head of state's entourage approached Havas's international director Jean-Philippe Dorent, an influential figure in the sometimes murky world of relations between France and its former colonies, a world known as “Françafrique”. Dorent was a frequent visitor to presidential offices on the continent. But Gnassingbé's representatives told Dorent that their boss only had a budget of 100,000 euros.
This proved no obstacle: Jean-Philippe Dorent alerted Gilles Alix, the number two in the Bolloré group, who was in turn given the go-ahead by his boss. In his statement to the investigation Gilles Alix acknowledged that Vincent Bolloré was informed of the operation and that he had given his agreement in principle to funding Faure Gnassingbé's presidential election campaign. But he said that his boss did not know the details or the sums involved.
A plum job for the president's half-brother
In the end Havas carried out services worth 400,000 euros of which only 100,000 euros was billed to the Togo presidency – and which was paid by a businessman close to Gnassingbé. The rest of the bill, a total of 300,000 euros, was billed by Havas to the group's logistics arm Bolloré Africa Logistics. The justice system viewed these as false invoices, because the logistical branch of the group paid for services which were not for itself but which instead benefited Togo's president.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Vincent Bolloré had no immediate cause to regret his actions. Just before and just after Faure Gnassingbé's re-election in March 2010, the billionaire's group obtained an extension of the port concession at Lomé with some lucrative extras: the construction of a third quay, tax exemptions and new warehouses. Interestingly, Bolloré also obtained a new concession for handling goods at the port, something his company had in fact done for seven years even though it had never formally agreed been in writing.
Seven months after the Togo elections the French billionaire personally decided to hire a man called Patrick Bolouvi, who is President Faure Gnassingbé's half-brother. Vincent Bolloré told investigators that he had met Bolouvi at a cocktail party and had been impressed with his ability. Having initially been hired by the logistics branch at Bolloré, in 2011 Bolouvi was catapulted into the position of boss of Havas Media Togo.
Patrick Bolouvi cost Havas 8,500 euros a month, 5,200 in salary, plus various other benefits such as rent, a car and even holiday trips. He was the “most expensive country director in a small market” complained one senior Havas executive.
A number of Havas managers wrote emails complaining about Patrick Bolouvi's behaviour; he was considered to be incompetent, not hard-working and plunged the firm's local accounts into the red. Some executives worried about Patrick Bolouvi being able to sign on behalf of the Togo subsidiary's bank account, taking the view that even given his “particular status” there were “limits”.
Vincent Bolloré was warned about the situation but kept the president's half-brother in post. When questioned by detectives about this, he said that Patrick Bolouvi was the subject of “disagreement between executives”, as some inside Havas had apparently not accepted the idea that the management of the Togo subsidiary could go to an African.
As for funding Faure Gnassingbé's presidential election campaign, Vincent Bolloré told the investigators that he had not been aware of that. This version of events, however, was contradicted in the evidence given by Gilles Alix, his number two. According to Le Monde, Vincent Bolloré's diaries state that during the Togo election campaign he had meetings with senior executives at Havas concerning “Togo” and its “president”.
According, too, to a judicial summary seen by Mediapart, detectives also found emails in which Gilles Alix and the director of Havas International made “numerous references to instructions from Vincent Bolloré (VB)” about the public relations services to be provided to the president of Togo. When questioned, the billionaire French businessman said that while his staff had mentioned his name, they had not informed him.
So according to his version of events, far from being the all-powerful hands-on boss that he was reputed to be, Vincent Bolloré was in fact a leader who was happy to “supervise”, who delegated a great deal and who was not aware of much that was going on. For example, he said that he never personally kept an eye on tenders for port concessions. He even said he was unaware of the existence of the company SDV Afrique – today called Bolloré Africa Logistics – even though his African business turned over 2.4 billion euros a year, close to half of the turnover of the group's logistical branch.
Enlargement : Illustration 3
Vincent Bolloré faced claims of very similar behaviour when it came to another West African country, Guinea. Here his group obtained the concession for the port at Conakry just after the 2010 election of president Alpha Condé (a “friend” of Vincent Bolloré). President Condé had received public relations services from Havas at a cost of 100,000 euros, financed by Bolloré Africa Logistics.
Vincent Bolloré also tasked the journalist Jean Bothorel, his family's official biographer, with writing a book of interviews in praise of Alpha Condé called Un Africain engagé ('A committed African'). All 10,000 copies of the book were bought by Havas and billed to Bolloré Africa Logistics for 70,000 euros. They were then handed out free as part of the 2010 election campaign and to promote President Condé internationally. Once again, Bolloré Africa Logistics had financed electoral services even though that is contrary to its corporate objective.
It was a “good idea for the group to make Africa and the possible 'Mandela' of tomorrow better known to our clients”, Vincent Bolloré told detectives, according to Le Monde. Yet the authoritarian nature of Guinea's president has been criticised by various human rights groups.
In March 2011 the French company Getma, which had been supplanted at the port at Conakry by the Bolloré group, made an official complaint of corruption to prosecutors in Paris. As Le Point magazine revealed, the billionaire avoid any proceedings on this claim thanks to a helping hand from a senior magistrate, Jean-Claude Marin, now retired, who is suspected of having buried several sensitive cases when he worked as chief prosecutor in Paris (read here and here). Marin quickly dismissed the Guinea case.
When the Guinea claims later came before the court of appeal in Paris in 2019, judges ruled that the alleged corruption by Bolloré's group had by then taken place too long ago to face criminal proceedings. In passing the judges noted that the actions - or inactions - of the prosecutors in Paris some years earlier may have contributed to this situation. However, the same judges ruled that when it came to allegations of “breach of trust”, the case in Guinea was not outside the prescribed statute of limitations period.
After the events of 2009 to 2011 Vincent Bolloré's group remained well entrenched at the ports in Lomé and Conakry and the billionaire went on to show loyalty to his presidential friends.
In Guinea the media company Vivendi, which is controlled by Bolloré, organised a huge concert in honour of Alpha Condé during the presidential campaign in 2015. He then had a 'Canal Olympia' auditorium built in Guinea.
In Togo, meanwhile, satellite station Canal +, a subsidiary of Vivendi, had the misfortune to broadcast a report called 'Lâche le trône' or 'Give up the throne'. This concerned the mass demonstrations in Togo calling for the departure of Faure Gnassingbé, whose family had ruled the country with a rod of iron for 50 years with France's support. The report went out on October 15th 2017, just nine days before Vincent Bolloré was due to visit Togo to inaugurate that country's Canal Olympia auditorium alongside President Gnassingbé.
Bolloré himself was not impressed. As the independent websites Arrêt sur Images and Les Jours revealed, Canal+ subsequently scrapped the rebroadcasting of the report and removed it from their website. The number two at Canal+ International was abruptly sacked. The satellite station then broadcast a promotional video in praise of Togo, which featured images of Faure Gnassingbé with French president Emmanuel Macron.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter