Overview
- On June 30 the Paris Court of Appeal handed Richard a six-month suspended sentence and a €15,000 fine for complicity in embezzlement of public funds.
- The ruling completes a retrial ordered by the Court of Cassation in June 2023 after it voided his original 2021 conviction of one year suspended and a €50,000 fine.
- Richard was director of cabinet to Economy Minister Christine Lagarde when a 2008 arbitration granted Bernard Tapie over €400 million against Crédit Lyonnais, later annulled for fraud.
- The Consortium de Réalisation reported recovering €246 million of the roughly €700 million debt linked to the annulled arbitration as of June 2025.
- The decision marks the concluding chapter of a long-running legal saga that highlighted tensions between private arbitration and public accountability in France.