Jugés pour soupçons de favoritisme au Crédit municipal de Bordeaux
At the helm of the Bordeaux Criminal Court, this Monday, December 5, the two artificers of this adventurous management, the former general manager Christophe Leuret and his deputy Jean-Christophe Guérin. The court is not responsible for deciding on the advisability of their management. But it remains in the background of the two lawsuits for favoritism of which they are the subject.
Reached by age limit
Because, to carry out this policy, the Municipal Credit needed the assistance of the auctioneers, charged with evaluating the goods. In early 2018, the market that linked the establishment to its historic auctioneer, Me Courau, matured. But the PSGHVs were perhaps only arousing enthusiasm. The auctioneers, personally liable in the event of an error in an estimate, argue in particular that their insurance only reimburses them up to 300,000 euros.
Enough to shake the hand that evaluated a property pledged against a loan of 25 million… To the point that the call for tenders found no takers. Only candidates, Me Courau, reached the age limit which prevented him from exercising, and Me Biraben (now deceased), settled in Bergerac. However, the law requires that the auctioneer be established in the jurisdiction of the city of the establishment.
It is however the study of Me Courau who will ensure the taking, after expiry of his contract, of a loan of 500,000 euros guaranteed by obscure diamonds and who will always wait for his reimbursement. The alerts of the auctioneer’s deputy will push him to refuse other PSGHVs. In June 2018, in an over-the-counter procedure, Me Biraben is chosen provisionally, although incompetent territorially. Before dying a few months later. Back to square one, a second over-the-counter procedure designates in fine… Me Run.
The trinkets of a jet setter
At the helm, Christophe Leuret pleads the need for continuity of service. “It was not just the PSGVH, without an auctioneer, everything stopped”, launches the senior official today inspector general of the environment. But nothing seems to have been able to convince the director to separate PSGHV and traditional pawnbrokers into two distinct lots, which would obviously have found takers.
Confessing that on his arrival at Crédit municipal he had no particular skills in banking or even in public procurement, the former deputy general manager of the City of Bordeaux swears that he never had any other objective than to “win more to lend more” and sticking to a procedure that he deemed to be in order, his market having failed to find a candidate.
“We can discuss his management. Good or bad, it’s one thing. But characterized as an offence, it is another scale”
“PSGHVs are a failure. The only three that were made were taken by Me Courau and Biraben, the only ones who agreed to do so and who were chosen,” notes Ms.e Bayle for Municipal Credit, civil party. Prosecutor Perrine Lannelongue points in particular to “dissuasive” procedures, such as the refusal to separate the lots which led to the award of the market to “auctioneers who had a taste for risk”. And likely not to curb the ambitions of management.
The magistrate claims six months suspended prison sentence and 20,000 euros fine against Christophe Leuret. And four months suspended and 15,000 euros against Jean-Christophe Guérin, prosecuted for having awarded without a call for tenders, at the request of jet-setter Pierre-Jean Chalençon, the guarding of Napoleonic objects that he had placed in pledge against 2 million euros.
Disrupted habits
Jean-Christophe Guérin maintains that he was not aware of the need to launch a call for tenders. “It is not good to upset habits”, grimaces Me Jean Gonthier, lawyer son, considering that “some auctioneers did not appreciate seeing beautiful objects coming out of the usual circuit of auction rooms”. “We can discuss his management. Good or bad, it’s one thing. But characterizing a crime is another scale. Maybe his analysis is wrong, but how is it tortious? » question Me Stasi, the director’s attorney.