The Paris Criminal Court will render its decision on April 20 in the trial of former Medef president Ernest-Antoine Seillière and thirteen other people, suspected of colossal tax fraud in 2007 within the Wendel company.
The prosecution requested four years’ imprisonment, including two firm, against Mr. Seillière and five years, including three firm, against the former chairman of the management board of the investment company Jean -Bernard Lafonta.
Sentences ranging from suspended sentences to prison terms have been requested for eleven former executives and a former tax lawyer. A fine of 37,500 euros and professional bans were also claimed.
In the last hours of the trial which began on January 17, the lawyers for the fourteen defendants called for an acquittal one after the other, denouncing requisitions “of immense violence” and arguing that the executives had never had ” intent” to evade taxes.
At issue in this case of dizzying amounts: a profit-sharing program called Solfur, which had allowed members of Wendel’s management team to recover in May 2007 a total of 315 million euros in securities, without being taxed.
To distribute these capital gains, in particular linked to the soaring Wendel share price, the executives had adhered to an ultra-sophisticated arrangement designed, according to the prosecution, to take abusive advantage of a legal regime which deferred the payment of the ‘tax.
For the defense, on the contrary, the Solfur arrangement was in line with the case law of the time: the executives were “convinced” that they were complying with the law, relying in particular on the opinion of a law firm reputable tax expert.
Chairman of the CNPF, which became Medef (1998-2005), Baron Ernest-Antoine Seillière, 84, heir to the Wendel dynasty, was chairman of the company’s supervisory board at the time. He had won 79 million euros.
Jean-Bernard Lafonta, 60, the main beneficiary of the operation with 116 million euros, was tried for tax evasion but also complicity in that of his co-defendants, suspected of having “piloted” and “imposed” the assembly on his frames.
With the arrival of the financial crisis in 2008, the assembly had finally proved disastrous, said executives at the helm.
All participants in Solfur had been notified at the end of 2010 of a tax adjustment of 240 million euros. After years of litigation, almost all of them have settled a negotiated amount – and much lower – to the Treasury.
The bank JP Morgan Chase, initially sent to trial in this case for complicity in tax evasion, agreed in September to pay a 25 million euro fine via a court settlement to close the proceedings.
© 2022 AFP
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