Former IMF chief Strauss Kahn to sue for defamation
Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who partly ran an investment company that is being sued for alleged fraud, will file a suit next week for defamation, his lawyer Jean Veil told AFP on Saturday.
19.10.2015
(AFP) Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who
partly ran an investment company that is being sued for alleged fraud,
will file a suit next week for defamation, his lawyer Jean Veil told AFP
on Saturday.
The investigation was opened on July 28 after a former shareholder in a now-defunct Luxembourg-based firm, LSK, lodged a formal complaint.
Strauss-Kahn, once tipped as a future French president, was
forced to resign from his role as head of the IMF in 2011 after being
accused of sexual assault by a New York hotel maid.
Those criminal charges were dropped in 2012 and the case was settled in a civil suit.
He was also dragged through French courts earlier this
year, accused of being at the centre of a prostitution ring, but was
found not guilty.
Investor claims he was misled
The probe into Strauss-Kahn's business dealings in Luxembourg focuses on a former shareholder, Jean-Francois Ott, who pumped 500,000 euros into the company.
Ott claims he was given a misleading impression of the
firm's financial situation when he made the cash injection and has sued
the company, and some of its former administrators, including
Strauss-Kahn, for fraud.
Strauss-Kahn had hoped to build up LSK into a
$2.0-billion-dollar investment fund, but winding-up proceedings began in
November 2014 after its founder, Thierry Leyne, committed suicide in
Tel Aviv.
Veil said his client had actually been duped by Leyne.
Strauss-Kahn quit the firm just days before Leyne's death and accused
his former associate of "excessive borrowing."