Stéphane Richard resigns as president and Orange Delegate Director

The Orange Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of Stéphane Richard as president and CEO of the French operator, after the Paris Court of Appeal condemned the executive to a one-year penalty of imprisonment exempt from compliance and payment of
A fine of 50,000 euros for its participation in the multimillionary scandal of the Tapie case.

The resignation of Richard will be effective once the new government structure has been designated in the Gala Operator and, at the latest, by January 31, 2022, the company said, adding that Stéphane Richard will continue in office until such a date
.

The Orange Governing Body thanked Richard for his commitment to the front of the company for the past 11 years, highlighting his contribution to the transformation of Orange into a leading multi-service operator in Europe and Africa.

“Everyone in my beloved Orange team, who today has shown me their support and affection, I want to express my deepest gratitude, and the pride that I have felt over these eleven years as their captain, on good and bad days
, “Richard said in a message published in his profile in the Twitter social network.

Stéphane Richard was sentenced to a year of imprisonment exempt from compliance and a fine of 50,000 euros for his participation in the so-called Tapie case, which was also condemned the then French Minister of Finance and now Chairperson of the European Central Bank (ECB),
Christine Lagarde.

According to the verdict, disseminated to the French press and that collects the Le Monde newspaper, the Court of Appeals in charge of the case has annulled a judgment of a lower court that had acquitted the employer.
One year’s sentence of prison has been issued in suspense, so the manager will not step on jail.

In a statement also spread to the French media, the Orange CEO has argued that accusations of complicity in the embezzlement of public money “are unfounded and are not based on any evidence.”
In addition, he said that this new verdict will appeal.

The French State is the main shareholder of Orange, with a 22.95% share between the shares in the hands of the State Participation Agency (equivalent to the Spanish SEPI) and BPIFRANCE (equivalent to the ICO), which accumulate a 13,
39% and 9.56%, respectively.

Richard condemnation refers to the participation of the executive in the well-known as Case Tapie.
The case goes back to 1993, when the Bernard Tapie entrepreneur sold adidas to the semipubal bank Lyonnais to join as a minister to the executive then led by François Mitterrand.

In 2008, the former Minister Lagarde promoted an arbitration tribunal that took out with the payment of compensation of 404 million euros to the employer.
Subsequently, Lagarde, already under his position as managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was convicted of negligence for the performance of it in this case and was ordered to tapy to return the funds.