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DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN

Judge sets DSK sex case hearing next week

A hearing in the civil case of disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been set for December 10th, after reports he will settle with the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault.

Published: 4 December 2012 09:11 CET

"If the case is settled, this will be announced in open court on that day," Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon told AFP on Monday.

The hearing is set for 2pm. McKeon said he expects the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, to be present, and for Strauss-Kahn to skip the proceedings.

If Strauss-Kahn, 63, and Diallo, 33, agree on the still undisclosed terms of the settlement, the one-time favorite for the French presidency would put to an end his sordid 18-month legal battle in the United States.

Strauss-Kahn's attorney William Taylor told AFP on Friday that negotiations were ongoing but refused to give details of any pay-off.

He called a report in France's Le Monde newspaper that Strauss-Kahn was ready to pay Diallo $6 million if she drops her civil suit "dramatically inaccurate."

Until now, Strauss-Kahn's lawyers repeatedly said they would not agree to a deal and called Diallo a gold digger.

Her legal team insisted equally strongly that she wanted her day in court to confront her alleged abuser.

Diallo's allegation of attempted rape in May 2011 triggered a stunning fall from grace for Strauss-Kahn, who had been seen as close to announcing he would run in an upcoming French presidential election.

Criminal charges were quickly brought, and then thrown out when Manhattan prosecutors said Diallo's testimony wouldn't stand up in court.

Meanwhile, Diallo filed her own civil lawsuit in a Bronx court, alleging that the 63-year-old leapt on her, naked, and forced her into oral sex.

Strauss-Kahn — who says a hurried, but consensual, sex act took place in his luxury room — returned immediately to France after the criminal case disintegrated.

However, by then Strauss-Kahn's career was in tatters, his marriage was on the rocks and he soon faced a string of other sex-related investigations by French authorities.

In France, Strauss-Kahn will learn December 19th if he is to face further investigation into pimping charges arising from allegations that he and associates arranged sex parties with prostitutes.

His lawyers have filed a request for the charges to be dismissed.

French prosecutors last month dropped an investigation into Strauss-Kahn's alleged participation in a gang rape after the woman involved said she had consented and was not pressing charges.

Strauss-Kahn has also been accused by 32-year-old author Tristane Banon of trying to rape her in 2002, but investigators who probed the allegations concluded that while there was prima facie evidence of a sexual assault, the
alleged attack had occurred too long ago to be prosecuted.

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ECONOMY

World unprepared for next financial crisis: ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn

The world is less well equipped to manage a major financial crisis today than it was a decade ago, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Published: 9 September 2018 14:08 CEST
World unprepared for next financial crisis: ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn
Former French Economy Minister and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn , poses during a photo session in Paris on Thursday. Photo: JOEL SAGET / AFP
In an interview with AFP, the now-disgraced Strauss-Kahn — who ran the fund at the height of the 2008 financial meltdown — also said rising populism across the world is a direct result of the crisis. 
 
Strauss-Kahn resigned as head of the IMF in 2011 after being accused of attempted rape in New York, although the charges were later dropped. He settled a subsequent civil suit, reportedly with more than $1.5 million.
 
Q: When did you become aware that a big crisis was brewing?
 
A: When I joined the IMF on Nov 1, 2007, it became clear quite quickly that things were not going well. That is why in January 2008, in Davos, I made a statement that made a bit of noise, asking for a global stimulus package worth two percent of each country's GDP. In April 2008, during the IMF's spring meetings, we released the figure of $1,000 billion that banks needed for their recapitalisation.
 
Q: Did the Bush administration grasp the danger of Lehman Brothers going bankrupt?
 
A: No, and that is why Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson decided not to save Lehman, because he wanted to make an example of it in the name of moral hazard. Like everybody else, he considerably underestimated the consequences. Allowing Lehman to go under was a serious mistake. Especially because only a week later they were forced to save the insurer AIG, which was much bigger.
 
Q: Ten years on, are we better equipped to deal with a crisis of such a magnitude?
 
A: No. We have made some progress, particularly in the area of banks' capital adequacy ratios. But that is not nearly enough. Imagine Deutsche Bank suddenly finding itself in difficulty. The eight percent of capital it has at its disposal are not going to be enough to solve the problem. The truth is that we are less well prepared now. Regulations are insufficient.
 
Q: How so?
 
A: After 2012-2013 we stopped talking about the need to regulate the economy, for example concerning the size of banks, or concerning rating agencies. We backtracked, which is why I am pessimistic about our preparedness. We have a non-thinking attitude towards globalisation and that does not yield positive results.
 
Q: Do we still have international coordination?
 
A: Coordination is mostly gone. Nobody plays that role anymore. Not the IMF and not the EU, and the United States president's policies are not helping. As a result, the mechanism that was created at the G20, which was very helpful because it involved emerging countries, has fallen apart. Ten years ago, governments accepted leaving that role to the IMF. I'm not sure it is able to play it today, but the future will tell.
 
Q: Do you believe that Donald Trump's election is a consequence of the crisis?
 
A: I believe so. I'm not saying that there was a single reason for Trump's election, but today's political situation is not unconnected to the crisis we lived through, both in the US with Trump and in Europe.
 
Q: Connected how?
 
A: One of the consequences of the crisis has been completely underestimated, in my opinion: the populism that is appearing everywhere is the direct outcome of the crisis and of the way that it was handled after 2011/2012, by favouring solutions that were going to increase inequalities.
 
Quantitative easing (by which central banks inject liquidity into the banking system) was useful and welcome. But it is a policy that is basically designed to bail out the financial system, and therefore serves the richest people on the planet.
 
When there's a fire, firemen intervene and there is water everywhere. But then you need to mop up, which we didn't do. And because this water flowed into the pockets of some, and not of everyone, there was a surge in inequality.
 
By AFP's Antonio Rodriguez