Yesterday, a French court found that the former Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde, had been negligent with regard to a small matter of €404m (£340m) paid to a French businessman, Bernard Tapie, in 2008. Despite the decision, the court also decided that this negligence warranted no penalty and Ms Lagarde will have no criminal record.
Today, the Board of the International Monetary Fund, of which Ms Lagarde is now Managing Director, considered the outcome of the case but also decided that it had no bearing on her position with them and expressed its continuing confidence in her.
How on earth can it be that someone can be so negligent and yet escape both punishment and censure ? How can it be that someone who has been found guilty of such gross financial negligence can retain the confidence of an organisation which manages not millions but many hundreds of billions of pounds, dollars, euros and the rest ?
This is a classic case of the political world being very different from that inhabited by the rest of us. A cashier negligent over £400 would probably lose their job; a financial accountant negligent over £4,000 could well be suspended from their Institute; a finance director negligent over £40,000 might well go to prison. However, a Finance Minister and international financier, negligent over €400m receives no punishment and retains her position as head of one of the world's most important financial institutions.
How is this right ?
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