The face of morality

France closed the Courchevel case of Mikhail Prokhorov

The French Themis has withdrawn its claims against Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. As the businessman’s lawyer, Alexander Genko, said on Monday, the criminal case opened against Mr. Prokhorov two years ago in the wake of the “Courchevel scandal” was closed due to the corpus delicti.

Let us recall that on January 9, 2007, police in the resort town of Courchevel detained several VIP vacationers from among representatives of Russian big business as part of an investigation into a case of a luxury prostitution network. The police were interested in 26 people, including almost all the top managers of Norilsk Nickel - the then co-owner of the company Prokhorov himself (whose fortune at that time was estimated at $6.4 billion), his assistant Dmitry Shatov and vice president Norilsk Nickel Oleg Baibakov. In addition, law enforcement officers detained several young girls accompanying the businessmen. No charges were brought against the detainees; they were only questioned as witnesses. Mr. Prokhorov was released from custody after interrogation at the Lyon Palace of Justice, and soon the businessmen and their companions returned to Moscow.

But the incident was not over - the oligarch was still involved in the case as an “assistant witness” (something between a witness and a suspect). In May of the same 2007, lawyers for three girls involved in the “Courchevel scandal” filed a counterclaim for illegal detention. This spring, representatives of the plaintiffs demanded that a criminal case be opened against the police officers who made the arrest. In the spring of 2008, lawyers representing the interests of Mr. Prokhorov demanded that the investigating judge in Lyon dismiss the case because the investigation conducted by French investigators did not lead to tangible results. However, then the arguments of the Russian lawyers were not accepted.

Now, according to Alexander Genko, the case is completely closed. Moreover, this decision was made by the judicial investigator almost two months ago, on August 9, but the Russian side became aware of it only on September 28. “The decision to close the case is final and not subject to appeal,” Mr. Genko emphasized. Mikhail Prokhorov himself, commenting on the decision in his case on an Internet blog, recalled, not without satisfaction: “I initially said that the case was essentially empty.” According to the businessman, “representatives of French justice have already, in fact, declared the detention of my friends illegal.” “This is fundamentally important for me,” emphasizes Mr. Prokhorov.

In turn, Genko’s lawyer, in his commentary, made an assumption about the reasons that prompted French law enforcement officers to arrest his client and other equally respected business people, and even as part of a campaign against pimping. “We know that the French police service has been given enormous resources that are disproportionate to this case. It is obvious that the police were misinformed, the lawyer has no doubt. “Who put them on this false trail, who gave them so much self-confidence—that’s what we’d like to know.” Let us recall that in the spring of this year, reports appeared in French newspapers that the “Courchevel scandal” could be connected with the negotiations taking place at the same time on the purchase by the French bank Societe Generale of a stake in the Russian Rosbank (whose shares were in turn owned by Prokhorov and his then partner in "Norilsk Nickel" Vladimir Potanin).

Now Mr. Prokhorov expects that the French side, or more precisely, the government of this country itself, will apologize for the incident in Courchevel. Previously, the businessman stated that he had sworn off trips to this fashionable resort and to France in general until they apologized to him. But, as lawyer Genko said, if the authorities officially express their regrets, Prokhorov “hopes to return to France - he is a great lover of this country.”

Mikhail MOSHKIN