Alexis Kohler sees his legal problems catch up with him this Tuesday. The Paris Court of Appeal set aside the prescription raised by the Secretary General of the Élysée, and confirmed the proceedings against him for illegally taking interests in the investigation into his family ties with the shipowner MSC, several indicated. sources close to the case.
This decision, confirmed by a judicial source, could be the subject of an appeal by Alexis Kohler and the two others involved. Emmanuel Macron's right-hand man has been indicted since 2022 for illegal taking of interests for having participated as a senior official from 2009 to 2016 in several decisions relating to the Italian-Swiss shipowner, led by the cousins of his mother, the Aponte family.
The investigating chamber examined in camera on October 1 the request of Alexis Kohler, who is first implicated for facts dating back to the years 2009-2012, when he officiated as a representative of the Participation Agency of the State (APE) within the board of directors of STX France (now Chantiers de l'Atlantique) but also on the board of directors of the Grand maritime port of Le Havre (GPMH).
He is then suspected of having, between 2012 and 2016, participated in choices on files involving MSC in Bercy, in the cabinet of Pierre Moscovici then Emmanuel Macron.
Prescribed facts?
From the beginning, Alexis Kohler's defense claims on the one hand that he always kept himself away from any decision relating to MSC and that he informed his superiors of the existence of family ties “very beyond its ethical obligations.
On the other hand, it ensures at the end of a legal calculation that at least part of the facts, prior to 2014, are prescribed. On Tuesday, the investigating chamber adopted a position different from the general prosecutor's office of the Court of Appeal and from that followed for a long time by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office in this case, by conforming to the vision of the investigating magistrates.
The investigating chamber in fact confirmed an order of April 2023 by which the investigating judges concluded that the facts were not prescribed, in particular because of the “positive acts to conceal” this conflict of interest attributed to Alexis Kohler.
Two former bosses of the APE, Bruno Bézard (2007-2010) and Jean-Dominique Comolli (2010-2012), implicated for their “pact of silence” with Alexis Kohler which would result from an “embarrassment” regarding this situation, had also argued that these facts were prescribed, but the court of appeal rejected their appeals.
No lawyer for the defense or for Anticor, the civil party behind the relaunch of the investigations after the dismissal of a preliminary investigation in August 2019, reacted immediately to this decision.
