At the helm of the criminal court, Patrick Meynard is not an unknown on the Place de Bordeaux. Owner of the Lalaudey and Pomeys castles (two bourgeois vintages of Moulis), he is also the president of AOC Moulis-en-Médoc and president of the Médoc wine council. This Thursday, January 24, is the management of his personal societies that earned him to appear for “abuse of corporate goods”, “presentation of inaccurate accounts”, “false and uses of false” and “money laundering”.
He is accused of having drawn from his holding company and his family company Meynard et fils (a trading company which also creates the closing of bottles) to bail out the operating company of its two castles, bought in 2007 and 2008 and desperately deficitors, from year to year. In seven years, 1.3 million euros from the companies in Bonis would have been used to fill the cash flow of castles which were, in fact, under infusion.
One year suspended suspended
“Your employees called your Dyson operating company, because it is a cash vacuum cleaner,” notes President Cyril Vidalie. “I was an unique associate of all the companies, it was to get out of the money in my left pocket to put it in my right pocket,” summarizes the defendant.
Financial movements within the same group are possible, but they are strictly framed. Cash advances must in particular be accompanied by agreements. The defendant is accused of not having done them or of having anti -dated late. Chartered accountants and auditors ensure that these formalities intended to protect companies (and employees) are respected. However, these are precisely the professions that Patrick Meynard exercised before embarking on wine!
“I was an unique associate of all the companies, it was to get out of the money in my left pocket to put it in my right pocket”
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“The arms fall to me” chokes the prosecutor Marie-Noëlle Courtiau-Durterrier. “That a young entrepreneur confuses his company and himself, it can happen, but a former auditor is something else,” continues the magistrate who claims a year suspended and 50,000 euros in Fine against the defendant, accompanied by a ban on managing and carrying out an activity in the wine sector and 80,000 euros fine against the operating company.
For the defense, cash advances are actually “purchases of early wines”. “Instead of enjoying his money as a liberal, he devoted colossal personal funds to viticulture,” recalls his lawyer Me Sylvain Galinat, also referring to 900,000 euros in personal funds conceded. As for the company Meynard et fils, the lawyer points out the mention “strong confidence” granted by the Banque de France, proof according to him that it has not been weakened.
Deliberated on March 31.
