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French industry group Bolloré reached a settlement on a ten-year-old corruption case in Togo on Friday, prosecutors said, but a separate plea deal with three senior company executives was rejected by a judge.
The company has agreed to pay 12 million euros ($ 14.5 million) as part of the deal with financial crime prosecutors that was accepted by a Paris court on Friday.
The case dates back more than a decade, when Bolloré, a transport, energy and logistics conglomerate, allegedly undercharged the Togolese government for consultancy work in exchange for a contract to manage the port of Lomé. between 2009 and 2011.
He also used a similar strategy with the Guinean government to take over management of the port of Conakry.
The case sparked an investigation for bribery of foreign officials, breach of trust and complicity in breach of trust.
Vincent Bolloré’s agreement was rejected by a Parisian judge. By ERIC PIERMONT (AFP / File) President Vincent Bolloré, a billionaire tycoon, and two other senior executives of the company, Gilles Alix and Jean-Philippe Dorent, had negotiated a separate plea with prosecutors to have the charges against them personally dropped in the case, in exchange of a fine of 375,000 euros ($ 455,000) and an admission of guilt.
But although Bolloré and the other two admitted wrongdoing in court on Friday, the presiding judge rejected their part of the deal, saying the corruption allegations against them were too serious to be allowed to disappear.
The fines “suggested by the prosecutor and accepted by the three defendants” were too lenient, said the judge, given that their actions had “seriously undermined public economic order” as well as Togo’s sovereignty.
Instead, the judge recommended that the three be tried on criminal charges.
The decision as to whether such a trial will actually take place now rests with the investigating judge.
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