BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian prosecutors have dropped their case against former directors of Fortis, 10 years after the Belgian-Dutch bank’s collapse during the global financial crisis.

FILE PHOTO: Belgian-Dutch financial services group Fortis Chief Executive Herman Verwilst and Chairman of the Board Maurice Lippens (R) attend a group's information session for shareholders in Brussels August 20, 2008. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

Brussels prosecutors said that they had decided not to pursue charges against seven ex-directors because it had not found sufficient proof that they had wilfully given over-optimistic information to shareholders.

“If we want to prove fraud then we need to show they knowingly attached too low a risk to the sub-primes, in other words were too positive... It is difficult to say that they should have known better,” said prosecutor Ine Van Wymersch.

She noted that Belgian insurer Ageas (AGES.BR), the legal successor to Fortis, was set to pay shareholders 1.3 billion euros by way of compensation.

Part of the reason for the pursuit of the ex-directors was to secure damages for Fortis shareholders who had lost their money.

Seven ex-directors, including former chairman Maurice Lippens and former CEO Jean-Paul Votron, were accused in 2013 of misleading investors during Fortis’s purchase of part of Dutch lender ABN AMRO and before its 2008 collapse.

Allegations by the prosecutors revolved around whether communications to investors about Fortis’s exposure to U.S. sub-prime assets were insufficient or too late, such as at the time of a capital increase when Fortis bought part of ABN AMRO.

The seven would have been the first in Belgium to face trial over banking failures during the crisis, which also forced bailouts for Franco-Belgian group Dexia (DEXI.BR) and Belgian company KBC (KBC.BR).

Fortis, once one of Europe’s largest banks, got into trouble after paying a top-of-the-market 24 billion euros ($27.4 billion) to buy the Dutch operations of ABN AMRO just before the credit crunch struck.

Shareholder groups have complained that Lippens and Votron repeatedly assured markets that Fortis’s balance sheet was strong and that it would not be changing its dividend policy.

In June, 2008, Fortis scrapped its interim dividend and sold new shares to prop itself up before it collapsed and was broken up in October 2008. </s> A Belgian court will give its verdict Monday on Salah Abdeslam, the last surviving suspect in the Paris Islamist attacks, over a bloody 2016 shootout with police in Brussels that led to his capture.

Prosecutors asked at the trial in February for Abdeslam and his co-defendant Sofiane Ayari to be jailed for up to 20 years if found guilty on charges of terrorist-related attempted murder and possession of banned weapons.

Neither Abdeslam, who is being held in jail in France pending a separate trial over the 2015 Paris attacks in which 130 people died, nor Ayari is expected to be in court in Brussels for the verdict, a court spokesman told AFP.

Belgian security forces will mount a major operation around the imposing Palace of Justice building in Brussels for the verdict, which judges are due to start reading out at 0645 GMT.

Abdeslam, 28, a Belgian-born French national, was transported to the court from France for the first day of the trial amid tight security including a helicopter escort, while Tunisian national Ayari, 24, is in jail in Belgium.

On the first day of the trial, Abdeslam proclaimed that he would only put his “trust in Allah” and accused the court of being biased against Muslims.

He then refused to attend the rest of the proceedings.

Three police officers were wounded in the gun battle after police acting on a tip-off over the Paris attacks raided a flat in the Forest area of Brussels on March 15, 2016.

Abdeslam was arrested three days later in the largely immigrant Molenbeek area of the Belgian capital, near his family home.

On March 22 suicide bombers from a cell linked to the Paris attacks killed 32 people and wounded hundreds more at Brussels airport and a metro station in the Belgian capital.

Investigators say Abedeslam’s arrest spurred the Brussels bombers to bring forward the attacks, which had originally been planned for a later date, as they feared they could be captured.

Prosecutors have said that DNA links Abdeslam to the apartment in the Forest district of Brussels where the shooting took place, but not to the weapons themselves that were used.

After Abdeslam refused to return to court for the trial in February, his lawyer Sven Mary sought the case’s dismissal on a technicality over how the judges were named to investigate the gun battle, and said media leaks had denied him a fair trial.

But lawyers for police wounded in the gun battle accused Abdeslam of “mocking” the trial.

One of the injured police officers was still suffering from after-effects including brain lesions, epileptic fits and vision and balance problems.

An organisation representing victims of the Brussels attacks and their families has asked for symbolic damages of one euro from the trial.

The Belgian trial is a prelude to a bigger one that Abdeslam will face in France at a later date over the November 13, 2015, Paris attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

Abdeslam’s brother Brahim was one of the suicide bombers. </s> Christine Lagarde looked to be safe in her role as the International Monetary Fund’s managing director on Monday night after its board gave her its backing, just hours after she was convicted of “negligence” over a huge payout to a business tycoon while she was French finance minister.

The IMF board praised the “wide respect and trust” for Mrs Lagarde’s leadership as it expressed its “full confidence” in her ability to continue in the role at the upper echelons of international finance.

France’s Court of Justice of the Republic, a special tribunal for ministers, earlier chose not to punish Mrs Lagarde or give her a criminal record. She had faced a one-year term and a €15,000 (£13,000) fine, threatening to derail her career.

Mrs Lagarde, who has maintained her innocence throughout the process, said she was “not satisfied” with the verdict but would not appeal against the decision. “There is a point in time when one has to just stop, turn the page and move on, and continue to work with those who have put their trust in me,” she said.

The ruling came after a week-long trial in which she received a rough ride. Ms Lagarde had maintained her innocence, and the prosecutor had asked for an acquittal over the "very weak" case after advising against bringing it to court in the first place.

Proceedings centred on Ms Lagarde's 2007 decision to allow a dispute over flamboyant magnate Bernard Tapie's sale of the Adidas sports brand to Credit Lyonnais bank to be resolved by a rarely-used private arbitration panel, instead of through the courts. </s> Carlos Ghosn, the powerful auto executive who recently lost his role as chairman of Nissan, has been formally indicted on charges that he underreported his income to Japanese authorities.

The Nissan Motor Co. as well as a top aide to Ghosn also were indicted, accused of assisting in the financial misconduct, state broadcaster NHK reports.

Ghosn, who was arrested and ousted as chairman after the allegations were made last month, was detained without charges for 22 days — the maximum length allowed under Japanese law.

But he's not tasting freedom yet. In addition to indicting him on Monday, authorities also served him a fresh arrest warrant, based on their belief that Ghosn's alleged fraud lasted longer than originally believed.

That will allow authorities to detain and interrogate Ghosn for three more weeks, Kyodo News Agency reports.

Ghosn was a titan in the automobile industry. He was venerated for orchestrating a remarkable turnaround at Nissan, which was edging near bankruptcy when he took the reins. And he simultaneously led Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi, arranging the three companies into a powerful, successful alliance.

Mitsubishi removed Ghosn from his post as chairman after his arrest. But his future at Renault is not yet clear.

The case has brought international scrutiny to Japan's judicial system, which has a conviction rate of more than 99 percent after indictment.

France 24 spoke to lawyer and former prosecutor Nobuo Gohara about the factors driving that astonishing figure.

" Few judges are willing to deliver an innocent verdict. And this has led to some false convictions," he said. "The biggest problem is the so-called hostage-based criminal justice system. Suspects who insist on their innocence tend to remain in custody for a long time. This is linked to Japan's high confession rate, and the assumption that a suspect who denies wrongdoing deserves to suffer disadvantage."

Even a high-profile scandal involving prosecutors caught tampering with evidence has not led to real reforms, Gohara says.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial saying Ghosn's arrest "ought to trouble anyone concerned with due process and corporate governance in Japan."

The Journal asked why Nissan wasn't aware of the alleged financial misconduct earlier, why the "publicly available facts" are so opaque, and why this case is being handled much more aggressively than recent accounting scandals at Toshiba and Olympus.

Both the Journal and Gohara also criticized the Japanese media, which regularly publishes leaked details about alleged criminal behavior, and has continued to do so in Ghosn's case. </s> PARIS (AP) — A lawyer for International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde says he wants a delay in a high-profile trial in which she’s accused of negligence for allowing a huge handout to a well-connected businessman.

Lagarde faces up to a year in prison if convicted in the case, which dates to her time as French finance minister. She contests the charges.

Lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve said on Europe-1 radio that he will seek a postponement when the proceedings open Monday, arguing that it doesn’t make sense for Lagarde to go on trial while a separate investigation in the case is still underway.

The case revolves around a $425 million arbitration deal given to tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2008 over the botched sale of sportswear maker Adidas in the 1990s. </s> Update: The IMF says in a statement following the Lagarde news that its board will meet shortly to consider the conviction.

“The executive board has met on previous occasions to consider developments related to the legal proceedings in France,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice says in e-mail, and adds that “It is expected that the board will meet again shortly to consider the most recent developments”:

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde was found guilty of one count of negligence by a French court today, according to Bloomberg News. She was accused of failing to prevent a massive government payout to businessman Bernard Tapie eight years ago, while serving as France’s finance minister, but most surprising, she will face no fine or jail sentence.

Ms. Lagarde was on trial on allegations of negligence stemming from her role nearly 10 years ago settling a dispute between the French state and business tycoon Bernard Tapie. The verdict is a blow to the IMF chief who had said Friday that the trial would end a five-year “ordeal” for her family and former colleagues.

The conviction places both Ms. Lagarde and the IMF in a bind after the fund approved a second term for her as managing director earlier this year. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean the IMF will have to eject Ms. Lagarde from her post, where she has won broad international support among both the fund’s largest shareholders, and its smaller members.

Some more details from Bloomberg:

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde convicted of one count of negligence by Paris court over her handling of a multi-million dispute when she was France’s finance minister.
• 60-year-old IMF managing director convicted at the Cour de Justice de la Republique, over events that occurred nearly a decade ago
• Lagarde was negligent in 2008 decision not to appeal arbitration, judge says
• Lagarde decided in mid-2008 not to appeal a 285 million-euro ($303-million) arbitration award for businessman Bernard Tapie that led to a massive government payout
• Lagarde was cleared of second count related to her 2007 decision to take Tapie dispute to arbitration
• Case stems from former state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais’s disagreement with Tapie over the 1993 sale of Adidas AG, which he owned

The IMF has just issued a brief statement:

Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that an IMF head has been “sacrificed” for the greater good: recall the impressive framing of Lagarde’s predecessor Dominique Strauss-Khan, who from frontrunning French presidential candidate, suffered a political and career trainwreck overnight when he allegedly raped a maid at a NYC hotel. </s> PARIS — Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, went on trial in Paris on Monday, facing criminal charges that when she was France’s finance minister, her negligence resulted in the misuse of hundreds of millions of euros in public money.

The trial caps a long-running legal drama that has overshadowed her role at the agency, captivated and irritated the French public, and exposed ties between powerful politicians and the wealthy. It has also compelled Ms. Lagarde to defend herself repeatedly since taking over at the I.M.F. in 2011, when another former French finance minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, resigned after being accused of sexually assaulting a maid in a New York City hotel.

Ms. Lagarde is accused of “negligence by a person in a position of public authority” in overseeing a politically charged arbitration case in 2007. In the case, Bernard Tapie, a flamboyant French tycoon close to Nicolas Sarkozy, then France’s president, was awarded more than 400 million euros, or $430 million, to settle a dispute with the partly state-owned bank Crédit Lyonnais.

Her lawyer appealed for a postponement, but the court — which is hearing the case in the same courtroom where the French queen Marie-Antoinette was tried — denied the request. The trial is scheduled to run through Dec. 20 but could conclude earlier. </s> Group known as Tarnac Nine cleared of sabotage plot after 10-year investigation and two-week trial

French judges have acquitted eight people accused of being part of an anarchist group that attempted to sabotage part of France’s high-speed rail network a decade ago, ruling that the group itself had been a “fiction”.

Defence lawyers had accused the government and authorities under the former rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy of wrongly claiming there was a hotbed of leftwing anarchist terrorists in a sleepy village in central France and manipulating the case in order to look tough.

French anarchists arrested - is Tarnac a rural idyll or terrorist hub? Read more

The notorious case, known as the Tarnac affair, began in November 2008 when more than a hundred French police officers swooped on the tiny rural village of Tarnac, arresting anti-capitalists who were living on a communal farm and running a village shop. In a vast media operation, the then rightwing government and French authorities alleged that the so-called Tarnac Nine were a cell of dangerous subversives intent on anarchist armed insurrection to overthrow the state.

At the time, villagers and the accused denied the charges, rights groups said the case was a misuse of anti-terrorism laws and lawyers said the case was deliberately being manipulated to make the government look tough against a supposed “enemy within”.

After 10 years of investigation — in which terrorist charges were dropped — and a three week trial, the two main accused – Julien Coupat, a business and sociology graduate, and his archeologist girlfriend, Yildune Lévy – were cleared of sabotage or belonging to any group.

“The hearing has allowed it to be demonstrated that the Tarnac group was a fiction,” the leading judge said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A police officer arrests a person on 11 November 2008 in the French village of Tarnac. Photograph: Thierry Zoccolan/AFP/Getty Images

Coupat and Lévy were found guilty of refusing to consent to a biological DNA test, but weren’t given a sentence. Of eight defendants — five men and three women, aged between 31 and 43 — the rest were also cleared of belonging to a subversive group. But one was convicted of handling stolen goods and attempting to falsify administrative documents.

“This is a humiliation for the anti-terrorism services of the time, for the magistrate who instructed the case, as well as for the anti-terrorist prosecutor,” said the lawyer Jérémie Assous, who defended several of those acquitted.

It emerged during the investigation that a former British police spy had infiltrated the group and made claims against them. French authorities did not pursue charges on those elements and Coupat had described the spy as “insignificant”. </s> Christine Lagarde will remain head of the International Monetary Fund despite being convicted of negligence in a case dating to her tenure as France’s finance minister.

The IMF’s executive board said it had “full confidence” in Lagarde’s ability to carry out her duties at the head of the Washington-based international lending agency.

After a week-long trial, France’s Court of Justice of the Republic on Monday found Lagarde guilty of one count of negligence but spared her jail time and a criminal record.

The 60-year-old IMF leader had potentially faced a year of imprisonment and a fine for not seeking to block a fraudulent 2008 arbitration award to a politically connected tycoon when she was finance minister.

Lagarde thanked the board for the vote of confidence “in my ability to do my job”. She said she would not appeal against the French court’s decision.

“I am not satisfied with it, but there’s a point in time when one must stop, turn the page and move on,” she said.

Lagarde, a lawyer, became France’s first female finance minister in 2007, overseeing the country’s response to the financial crisis that rocked the global economy from 2008. She is also the first woman to head the IMF.

“She is a strong leader,” US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said after the board’s decision. “And we have every confidence in her ability to guide the fund at a critical time for the global economy.”

The Court of Justice of the Republic is a special tribunal to hear cases of alleged criminality by ministers in office and is made up of three judges and 12 parliamentarians.

It ruled that Lagarde’s negligence in her management of a long-running arbitration case involving tycoon Bernard Tapie helped open the door for the fraudulent misappropriation of public funds. Lagarde herself was not accused of fraud.

The case revolves around a 403 million-euro (£337 million) arbitration award given to Mr Tapie in 2008 over the botched sale of sportswear giant Adidas in the 1990s.

Civil courts have since quashed the unusually generous award, declared the arbitration process and deal fraudulent and ordered Mr Tapie to refund the money.

The special court’s presiding judge, in reading the verdict, said Lagarde should have asked her aides and others for more information about the “shocking arbitration award”.

In deciding not to sentence Lagarde, the court noted that the award to Mr Tapie has since been annulled, sparing damage to the public purse. It also noted that Lagarde was busy at the time with the global economic crisis.

Lagarde’s “personality and national and international reputation” also counted in her favor in the decision not to punish her, the court ruled.

Lagarde, who was not present for the verdict, maintained her innocence through the trial. The prosecutor had asked for an acquittal in the case, which began in 2011.

The special court acquitted Lagarde of negligence in her original decision to put the Tapie case to arbitration. But it found her guilty in a subsequent decision not to contest the amount of the arbitration award.

The legal battle between Mr Tapie and Credit Lyonnais over the public bank’s sale of his Adidas stake was still unresolved when Lagarde took over at the Finance Ministry in 2007.

Lagarde ordered that the dispute be settled through a private arbitration panel, instead of regular courts. The massive award raised questions about whether Mr Tapie benefited from his political connections, including with then-President Nicolas Sarkozy, Lagarde’s boss when she was his finance minister.
Ten years after the collapse of Belgian financial group Fortis in the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the prosecutor in Brussels decides to drop the case against seven former directors. The prosecution argues that it found insufficient evidence that they knowingly misled shareholders with over-optimistic company information.