What Le Monde writes about Bolloré’s judicial woes
All Bolloré's affairs and problems in Africa according to Le Monde Diplomatique
The article in Le Monde Diplomatique on the affairs of Mr. Bolloré is distinguished from the common vulgate by an acute critical sense.
After noting that Bolloré Africa Logistics is present in forty-two ports, which is a reseller of sixteen container terminals (most of which in French-speaking countries), which also manages three railway concessions and provides logistics and transit with customs clearance and freight operations , employing more than 20,000 people – or a quarter of the group's workforce worldwide, reaching a turnover of € 2.1 billion -, Le Monde reminds distracted readers that there are many legal proceedings against it. And among these, one of the most important could involve not only Vincent Bolloré himself, but also the managing director Gilles Alix and the head of the international division Havas Jean-Philippe Dorent for "corruption of foreign public officials, breach of trust and complicity in violation of trust ".
Specifically – as reported by Le Monde -, the Parisian judges suspect that the group of the French billionaire had under-turnover the consulting and communication services to Alpha Condé, candidate for the presidency of Guinea, to Faure Gnassingbé, then candidate for re-election in Togo, to obtain the management of the ports of Conakry and Lomé.
How did the Paris prosecutor's investigation end? Not only did the accused admit their responsibility, they also paid a fine of € 375,000 each, as well as reimbursing the French Treasury with € 12 million. Despite the willingness of Bolloré & company to pay their debts with the French and African justice in February 2021, the court of justice of Paris – and in particular the judge Isabelle Prévost-Desprez – rejected the agreement with Mr. . Bolloré and his collaborators, since the facts of which they have been accused are of such gravity that the sanctions that have been determined are not adequate for the crimes committed. If all this is confirmed, as required by the rules of the French penal code in relation to the crime of corruption, the defendants could be sentenced to five years in prison.
But the judicial problems of the billionaire Bolloré certainly did not end there, as the justice of Paris in October 2020 "opened a preliminary investigation, still ongoing, on the conditions for granting the concession contract for the container terminal of the port. Kribi's Cameroonian to a group consisting of the Bolloré group, CMA-CGM and the China Harbor Enginering Company. Would the assignment process be rigged? In Cameroon, an investigative judge is also investigating possible crimes of producing and suppressing evidence, false testimony and false news "committed by Camrail, a subsidiary of the group, against another company, Sitrafer".
But the legal troubles are not over yet: a subsidiary of the group present in the port of Douala, namely the Douala International Terminal (DIT), has been accused of embezzling public funds in the operation of a container terminal from 2004 to 2019.
Did the legal proceedings of the French multinational end in this way? It does not appear, since there are similar problems also in West Africa, namely in Benin, where four executives have been accused – and even placed in pre-trial detention – of having been found with 150 kg of cocaine hidden in a sugar container. in the port of Cotonou.
And what about Burkina Faso, where a subsidiary of the French group in 2018 tried to illegally export gold hidden inside cargoes of coal for a fraud estimated at 500 million euros?
The exercise of power, both in the political and economic fields, almost inexorably determines – as if it were a mathematical equation – corruption, violation of the most elementary principles of morality and law (think, to remain in France, of countless scandals linked to the multinational Total). And for this very reason this modus operandi must be pursued in a systematic and capillary way. Without giving anyone discounts. Only in this way will the justice of democracies be able to prove that it is superior to the bogus justice of authoritarian or totalitarian systems. Of the present and the past.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/vincent-bollore-le-monde-diplomatique/ on Sun, 02 Jan 2022 07:07:45 +0000.