The Nanterre public prosecutor’s office appealed against the court’s cancellation of the proceedings against three people for “fraud» and against Axa Bank Belgium for «complicity in fraud“, he said Wednesday, March 30, requested by AFP.
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On March 25, the Nanterre court “noted the unreasonable delay of the procedure“, which lasted 30 years, since the filing of the initial civil party complaint in April 1992. However, these circumstances bear “violation of the right to be tried within a reasonable time in a fair trial» and also carries «an irremediable breach of the rights of the defense“, he then estimated. On Tuesday, the parquet floor of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) appealed this decision.
The facts date back to the end of the 1980s. From 1986 to 1991, a French financial intermediary, supported by a notary and a bank manager, now aged 79, 80 and 83 respectively, offered French savers mortgage loans issued by a credit institution in Antwerp, then bought by the company that became Axa Bank, Axa’s European banking subsidiary. The mortgages were covered by authentic deeds, which is why the notary is accused of having thus made forgeries in authentic writing, the court recalled.
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Thirty years of procedure
After thirty years of proceedings, this file was returned to the Nanterre court by a judgment of the Versailles investigating chamber in March 2019. The three respondents had been returned for “fraudulent scams” and “false in private writes“. Axa Bank had been fired for “complicity in fraud” and “complicity in forgery in private writings“.
In January 2021, the same court decided to cancel another procedure, this time 20 years old and concerning the corruption case known as the “La Defense boiler room“. He considered that the defendants’ right to be tried within a reasonable time had not been respected and had undermined the defense of two of the main defendants, because “disorders related to old age and their state of health“. The prosecution had appealed this decision but the Versailles Court of Appeal confirmed in September the cancellation of the proceedings and rejected the requests of the general prosecutor’s office, which then appealed in cassation. The Court of Cassation was to examine the appeal on Wednesday.