French bank BPCE's chief cleared in conflict of interest case
By Chine Labbé
PARIS (Reuters) - A French court on Thursday cleared BPCE bank chairman Francois Perol of wrongdoing in a conflict of interest case over his previous role as a presidential adviser on banking.
The court acquitted him of a charge of illegal conflict of interest, but the prosecutors' office said afterwards that they would appeal.
Prosecutors had alleged there was a conflict of interest between his 2009 appointment as head of France's second-biggest retail bank and his position advising Nicolas Sarkozy, who was president at the time.
French law bans public officials from working for companies over which they have had direct authority in the previous three years.
Prosecutors, who took up the case following a complaint from unions, had been seeking a two-year suspended sentence, a 30,000 euro (£22,135) fine and a ban on Perol holding public office.
The verdict lifts a cloud of uncertainty over BPCE and its 108,000 employees. There was no obvious successor for Perol, whose mandate runs to May 2017, had a guilt verdict forced him to step down.
Perol's lawyer said there was little chance that prosecutors would succeed in getting the ruling overturned and that the appeal, which is not likely to go to court until next year, had no bearing on him remaining in his job.
Perol, who burst into tears when the judge read the verdict, had denied any wrongdoing.
"The court has handed down justice," Perol said as he left the courtroom, still struggling to hold back tears.
Perol, 51, was put in charge of BPCE after it was created by a merger of cooperative banks Banque Populaire and Caisse d'Epargne to prevent - with state aid - their investment banking arm Natixis from collapsing in the financial crisis.
The banker denied during his trial that he played any decision-making role during the negotiations over the merger, which were closely followed by the president's office.
Prosecutor Ulrika Delaunay-Weiss said during the trial that Sarkozy's staff had been involved in the merger project all along the way, with nearly 40 meetings between them and the banks at the presidential palace between 2007 and 2009.
(Writing by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Andrew Callus and Mark Trevelyan)
