He is accused of having participated, in 2007, in an ultra-sophisticated financial arrangement aimed at deceiving the tax authorities.
The former president of Medef, Ernest-Antoine Seillière, was sentenced Wednesday in Paris to three years in prison suspended and 37,500 euros fine, found guilty of having participated in a tax fraud in 2007 within the company Wendel.
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The former boss of the investment company, Jean-Bernard Lafonta, was given a four-year suspended prison sentence. Eleven other executives and a former tax lawyer were given sentences ranging from a suspended fine to a suspended prison sentence with a fine of 37,500 euros. Fifteen managers and executives of Wendel had achieved in May 2007 a total net gain of 315 million euros, or 4.6% of the company’s capital, from a profit-sharing program called Solfur, without being taxed.
A decision below the requisitions of the national financial prosecutor’s office
For the court, this considerable profit, linked in particular to the sharp rise in Wendel’s share price between 2004 and 2007, was placed “artificially“under a regime of”suspension of taxation», making it possible to defer the taxation which should have reached a rate of approximately 30%. The defendants crossed thefrontier” Between “tax optimization» and the «tax fraud“, underlined in particular the president, considering that they had”astray» a legal device, designed by the legislator to facilitate corporate restructuring and economic activity. The court, however, remained below the requisitions of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), which had claimed during the trial in January and February four years, including two years, against Baron Seillière, as well as five years, including three closes against Jean-Bernard Lafonta.
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Ernest-Antoine Seillière, 84, a member of the Wendel family which still controls the company, was at the time the chairman of its supervisory board. Boss of Medef from 1997 to 2005, the one who was also boss of European bosses defended himself during the trial of having wanted to evade the tax, like his thirteen co-defendants. Jean-Bernard Lafonta, 60, took over the chairmanship of Wendel’s management board in the early 2000s. After resigning in 2009, notably in the wake of the Solfur scandal, he co-founded the HLD fund. Present at the deliberations, the two men and their advisers did not react immediately. They have ten days to appeal.
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