#Anti-bribery & Corruption:

Libyan financing case: Nicolas Sarkozy requests additional information

Nicolas Sarkozy, accused of receiving Libyan funding for his 2007 presidential campaign, has asked for documents discovered in parallel legal proceedings to be added to the case file. One of these documents, drawn up by the “Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure” (DGSI) in connection with the retraction of the testimony of the Franco-Lebanese intermediary Ziad Takkiedine, questions the veracity of the “Libyan note”. This note, which has been confirmed by the courts on several occasions, mentions Muammar Gaddafi’s agreement to finance the presidential campaign of the former French president in 2007. > Read article

Chad: searches in France and Belgium on suspicion of corruption

Several executives of the Belgian company CFE, including two French nationals, have been questioned as part of a corruption investigation. They are suspected of having bribed Chadian officials on behalf of CFE, which was responsible for the construction and delivery of the Ndjamena hotel in Chad. Several bribes were allegedly paid to obtain payment of the company’s 60 million euros invoice from the Chadian government. Several searches have been carried out in Belgium and France as part of this investigation, which also aims to determine the use of nearly 12 million euros withdrawn from the company’s account at Société Générale’s Chadian subsidiary. > Read article

#White-collar crime:

Professional training fraud: 14 people sentenced for a €3 million scam

On Wednesday 4 September, 14 people were sentenced by the Paris Criminal Court for fraud and organized group fraud for managing or working for private companies that issued false invoices to approved collective training organizations (OPCAs) between 2009 and 2014. They exploited the weaknesses of the compulsory training system by overstating the number of hours, charging fees up to the legal maximum and even offering “exotic” training courses with titles similar to those paid for by the OPCAs. Investigators from the Office Central pour la Répression de la Grande Délinquance Financière (Central Office for the Repression of Serious Financial Crime) have estimated the damage at around 3 million euros, public money earmarked for employee training. > Read article