In France, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office is demanding a trial for active corruption of a foreign public official against Vincent Bolloré, in the case of port contracts in Guinea and Togo. This decision follows that of the Court of Cassation, which rejected the French billionaire’s last appeal against this procedure.
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The final decision will be made by financial investigating judge Serge Tournaire, but the corruption trial of Vincent Bolloré is now back on track in France, after more than ten years of legal drama.
In their requisitions, the prosecutors of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office evoke a “corruption pact”, in which the French businessman would have used the services of his communications subsidiary in the presidential campaigns in Togo and Guinea to obtain management of ports of Lomé and Conakry, for its logistics subsidiary.
Vincent Bolloré admitted the facts at the beginning of 2021 during a form of French-style guilty plea, for him and his group, in exchange for the payment of fines. But the judge considered the facts too serious for him to benefit from this system and she sent the case back for investigation, which the businessman had contested all the way to cassation, in vain. It is “ good news and a first », According to William Bourdon, lawyer for Transparency International France.
Symbolically, this trial will represent for many members of African civil society, in particular, a judicial event and beyond that an important historical event.
William Bourdon, lawyer for Transparency International France
The Sherpa and Anticor associations welcome this referral request, as do the lawyer for two former Togolese presidential candidates. The lawyers of Vincent Bolloré and his group indicate for their part that they will present a request for dismissal of the case, considering that the case is “ legally void. »
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