Rachida Dati will try this Tuesday to remove a legal thorn that she has had in her side since 2021. The Minister of Culture will therefore once again ask the Paris Court of Appeal to abandon the proceedings which are targeting in the case on the contracts entered into with a subsidiary of Renault-Nissan, when Carlos Ghosn was the CEO.
The investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal is seized of two requests from Rachida Dati, indicated a judicial source. One to establish the statute of limitations on the alleged facts, the second to grant the minister the more favorable status of assisted witness.
According to Dati’s lawyers, “everything is prescribed, strictly prescribed”
His lawyers, Olivier Baratelli and Olivier Pardi, specified that only the statute of limitations of the facts would be examined. “Everything has been prescribed, strictly prescribed, for years,” according to them. They argue “the discovery of new, fundamental elements attesting that more than forty managers of Renault, Nissan and the Renault-Nissan alliance (embodied by the Dutch subsidiary RNBV), were clearly informed of the mission of Rachida Dati’s lawyer, his reality, his services and the amount of fees.
The limitation period – three years at the time – would therefore begin at the time of signing the agreement between RNBV and Rachida Dati in 2009 and not in 2019 with the complaint of a Renault shareholder. “Moreover, those responsible for the European Parliament affirm, in a consistent manner, that they have never been asked for any intervention for the benefit of the alliance and even less of Renault,” according to the lawyers. They had already contacted the investigating chamber to have the facts established in vain.
Suspicions involving 900,000 euros
The former Minister of Justice and former LR mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris has been indicted since July 2021 for “corruption and passive influence peddling by a person invested with a public elective mandate”. The suspicions relate to the 900,000 euros that RNBV paid to her between 2010 and 2012, while she was a lawyer and European MP (2009-2019). The investigations sought to determine whether the fee agreement could have been used to mask lobbying activity in the European Parliament prohibited to any elected official.
Carlos Ghosn has been the subject of an international arrest warrant in this case since April 2023: the former big boss did not appear at a summons with a view to possible indictment for corruption in May 2022. Rachida Dati like Carlos Ghosn contests any irregularity.
The investigations, which began in July 2019, have been completed since September 2023. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office must soon take its requisitions, then the investigating judge will order or not a trial before the Paris Criminal Court.