The trial of Parisian lawyer Jean-Georges Betto, specialist in arbitration, for moral and sexual harassment of trainees and collaborators, opened on Friday, September 8 in Paris. The 53-year-old man, a partner of former justice minister Dominique Perben, was the subject of disciplinary proceedings by the Paris bar, opened after the reporting of two women in the summer of 2018.
On December 17, 2019, the bar imposed a twelve-month ban on him, including ten suspended. The Court of Appeal increased this sanction on January 10, 2022 to an eighteen-month ban, twelve of which were suspended. At the same time, in March 2020, a criminal investigation was opened, which resulted in the lawyer being summoned to court.
Jean-Georges Betto, who was notably the lawyer for Bernard Tapie and the former oligarch Sergei Pougatchev, is suspected of sexual harassment between 2012 and 2017 on five trainees or collaborators, having established a “permanent sexualized climate”.
He is accused of having made dedications with a sexual connotation of his books, asked intrusive questions about their intimacy, made comments on their clothing, reflections with a sexual connotation, comments on his own sex life.
Establishment of a “climate of fear”
He is also on trial for moral harassment of four of these same employees and another lawyer: he is suspected of having made public mockery and humiliating remarks about their professional skills, of having had erratic management and created a “climate of fear”.
The lawyer, who disputed many of the charges during the disciplinary proceedings, is due to be questioned on September 15. He and his counsel did not wish to speak at the opening of the trial.
On Friday, a civil party, who did an internship in 2014 within the firm, explained in particular that, during a “one-on-one coffee”he had him “talked about his exes”of “his conquests” and later, while she was smoking, said: “I like the taste of cigarettes on women’s lips. »
She said he called her “his favourite”, put his hand on her shoulder and played with her locks of hair. She also reported that he had given her a book written under a pseudonym including a passage “particularly gritty” concerning a “24 year old intern”. The dedication was: to her, “who will know how to keep the secret” – the defense argued that he was referring to his pseudonym.
The young woman further claimed that one day, when she was trying to discuss professional difficulties with another lawyer, he said to her: “I’m sure you like spankings.” »