“The CJR plunged into the intricacies of this technical affair and a kind of general agreement was reached to conclude that there was no reason to reproach anything to the Minister of the Budget at the time who had arbitrated the regime applicable to Tapie’s compensation with regard to the sale of Adidas”, said Me Le Borgne, who represented the now absent Renaissance deputy.

After having read the deliberations, the lawyer spoke to AFP, “a technical case, particularly complex, of tax law and the legitimacy or not of a tax system”.

“There are from time to time inclinations to see evil everywhere and fortunately, it happens that we realize that it is wrong that the suspicion was raised”, welcomed Me Le Borgne.

In May, the public prosecutor’s office of the CJR had requested a dismissal for Mr. Woerth, indicted since June 2021, considering that the intentional element of the offense of misappropriation was “not sufficiently characterized”.

The deputy was suspected of having granted an undue tax advantage to Mr. Tapie, who died in October 2021 of cancer, after the controversial arbitration of his conflict with Crédit Lyonnais, rendered in 2008 and since canceled by civil justice. The businessman had been awarded 403 million euros to settle his dispute with the bank over the sale of Adidas.