In a unprecedented twist, the long-running feud between the the Russian collector Dmitry Rybolovlev and the Swiss businessman Yves Bouvier has reached the higher echelons of the French authorities.
From 6-17 November, France’s minister of justice, Eric Dupont-Moretti, will stand trial in excessive court docket on prices referring to a sequence of alleged conflicts of curiosity. If the minister is discovered responsible, he faces a five-year jail time period and would inevitably have to depart workplace.
Earlier than being appointed minister of justice in 2020 by President Emmanuel Macron, Dupont-Moretti was a high-powered felony defence legal professional, recognized for his sanguine temperament and aggressive appearances in court docket.
The minister is accused of getting harassed judges he had clashed with throughout his profession as a lawyer. Essentially the most outstanding case within the 143-page doc detailing the fees in opposition to him and revealed by the newspaper Le Monde, pertains to his function as legal professional for Rybolovlev and the Monaco chief of the judiciary police Christophe Haget.
From 2015 to 2017, Dupont-Moretti represented Rybolovlev as a civil occasion in Paris within the case of the alleged theft of Picasso works bought by Bouvier to the Russian collector.
Since 2015, the Russian oligarch has been accusing Bouvier of getting swindled him out of €1.1bn within the sale of 38 artworks. A felony process remains to be underway in Switzerland. However a earlier case, initiated by Rybolovlev in Monaco, was dismissed in 2019 for being “partial and disloyal” in the direction of the Swiss supplier. The principality’s court docket of attraction concluded that the authorized authorities had “undermined the defendant’s rights“ by serving to Rybolovlev in secret in the course of the investigation.
Edouard Levrault, a French decide based mostly in Monaco, charged Rybolovlev and Haget, amongst others, with bribery.
Nevertheless, in response to the indictment cited by Le Monde, Levrault was faraway from his publish after an trade between Prince Albert of Monaco and President Emmanuel Macron.
In June 2020, performing on behalf of Haget, Dupont-Moretti filed a grievance in opposition to the decide, who had implied throughout a TV discuss present that he had been fired as a result of he was investigating Rybolovlev. An administrative investigation was subsequently launched in opposition to Decide Levrault (he was cleared of any disciplinary breach in mid-September). Dupont-Moretti was appointed justice minister a month later.
He’s now accused of getting abused his place as justice minister to retaliate in opposition to Decide Levrault with whom he was in “confirmed battle“.
Accused of getting “acted out of vindictiveness“ in opposition to Levrault and different judges, Dupont-Moretti denies wrongdoing. He described the fees as a “biased accusation, which didn’t respect his primary rights“.
UPDATE: This text was amended to replicate that Eric Dupont-Moretti was Dmitry Rybolovlev’s legal professional as a civil occasion in Paris in a felony process in opposition to Yves Bouvier, however didn’t characterize him within the felony case in Monaco.
