Judges in a Nanterre courtroom are untangling an alleged scheme to siphon billions from TotalEnergies through a disputed arbitration process.
The court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre opened proceedings this week in an extensive fraud case centred on an alleged attempt to extract more than €19 billion from TotalEnergies.
Seven defendants – amongst them a former senior magistrate, two well-known Parisian lawyers and figures linked to the late businessman André "Dédé la sardine" Guelfi – are set to appear over the next three weeks as the court unravels the tangled origins of a controversial 2009 arbitration bid.
The case dates back more than a decade and a half, when in 2011, TotalEnergies filed a complaint with prosecutors in Nanterre, claiming it had been the target of an elaborate fraud attempt.
The company argued that an arbitration procedure launched two years earlier was baseless – a view supported by successive court rulings that confirmed an underlying 1992 oil exploration contract in Russia had never actually taken effect.
That agreement, struck between one of TotalEnergies’ subsidiaries – at the time part of French oil company Elf – and the Russian regions of Saratov and Volgograd, along with the company Interneft, was conditional on several preliminary requirements.
These conditions were never met, yet the Russian claimants pushed for arbitration, demanding more than €19 billion on the grounds that TotalEnergies had failed to honour the deal.
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'Dédé la sardine'
André Guelfi, a businessman with a colourful past and an equally colourful nickname – Dédé la sardine – sits at the centre of the affair.
In the early 1990s, he acted as a fixer for Elf in the former USSR before becoming embroiled in the huge Elf corruption scandal.
Convicted of embezzling funds from the oil group, he later re-emerged in various business dealings.
Investigators believe Guelfi played a key role in steering the disputed arbitration process.
However, with his death in 2016, he was never interviewed by magistrates and his precise influence remains unclear.
Nevertheless, prosecutors argue that his relationship networks in Russia and France were instrumental in pushing forward the arbitration bid – one TotalEnergies has consistently denounced as a blatant attempt at extortion.
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Legal heavyweights in court
Among those now facing trial is Jean-Pierre Mattei, former president of the Paris Commercial Court.
Selected in 2009 as a member of the arbitration panel, he stands accused of passive corruption and attempted fraud as part of an organised group.
He will be tried alongside the two other arbitrators chosen for the tribunal.
Two prominent Parisian lawyers – Olivier Pardo and Xavier Cazottes – are also in the dock. Pardo is charged with active corruption of an international arbitrator and of a person tasked with a public service mission.
Prosecutors suspect he sought to influence Mattei’s appointment and maintained close ties with Guelfi throughout the arbitration push. Cazottes faces similar allegations.
A solicitor close to Mattei, two additional members of the arbitration tribunal and the ad hoc administrator of the now-liquidated Elf subsidiary involved in the original contract round out the list of defendants.
Over the course of the hearings, the court will attempt to uncover the precise roles each defendant played in the arbitration initiative – and whether the process was driven by genuine legal misjudgment or outright fraud.
The court proceedings are expected to last at least three weeks.
(with newswires)
