According to a press release from the public prosecutor's office at the Court of Cassation, "the intentional element of the misappropriation offense does not appear to be sufficiently characterized", the proof "of a desire to grant the taxpayer an undue advantage" having not been reported.
Mr. Woerth was indicted on June 30, 2021 by CJR magistrates for having granted this tax benefit to Mr. Tapie, who died in October of cancer, after the controversial arbitration of his conflict with Crédit Lyonnais.
The final decision on a dismissal or a possible referral of Mr. Woerth to the court of the CJR, the only court empowered to prosecute and try ministers for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions, now belongs to the commission of instruction of the CJR.
“It is a technical affair in which it obviously appeared that the minister had nothing to reproach himself for”, commented to AFP Me Jean-Yves Le Borgne, lawyer for Mr. Woerth.
"It seems normal to me that the public prosecutor's office considers that there are no grounds for criminal prosecution," he said, saying he was awaiting the decision of the CJR's investigating committee "with confidence".
As part of the arbitration rendered in 2008 and since canceled in civil proceedings, Bernard Tapie was awarded 403 million euros to settle his dispute with Crédit Lyonnais over the sale of Adidas.
Part of the money was paid to Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT), one of the holding companies of the former president of Olympique de Marseille.
For the tax authorities, the money paid to GBT should be taxed under corporation tax (33.3%), but the Tapie camp demanded the application of the much more favorable capital gains regime. (1.67%).
Finally, in a letter dated April 2, 2009, Eric Woerth's cabinet had decided to tax two-thirds of the compensation at 1.67% and the remaining third at 33.3%.
© 2022 AFP