Alcatel NV has once again found itself in hot water when Rennes district attorney Renaud Van Ruymbeke last Thursday delivered his latest series of depositions from Luxembourg bankers that disclose his findings after delving further into the links between Parisian banker Alain Cellier, former minister of industry Gerard Longuet and France’s Republican Party. In the process of interviewing Andre Berger, the manager of Bayrische Landesbank, Van Ruymbeke and his Luxembourg counterpart Jeannot Nies, uncovered the second payment by the company to one of six accounts held there by Cellier. The account for one of Cellier’s six Panamanian companies, Rickmar Finance SA, received approximately $100,000 from Alcatel CIT Commutation via the Union Bank of Switzerland in Zurich on December 18 1991. Alcatel’s Swiss subsidiary, Alcatel Standard AG, was already implicated in November in the Republican Party’s 1988 purchase of its headquarters in Paris. That subsidiary dumped over half a million dollars into Cellier’s deposit account at Bayrische Landesbank about one month before one of those accounts paid businessman Michel Reyt nearly $1m for the property. Gerard Longuet, president of the party and bosom buddy of Cellier’s, signed off on that transaction, but he maintains he knew nothing of the origin of the funds. Nies, in Luxembourg, said, There is no case against Alcatel yet. I think the investigation will probably last longer than [Van Ruymbeke] thought it would. It will be a very difficult case. If I were a French magistrate, I would have to prove that the Alcatel people in charge in France were involved with the transfer from Alcatel Switzerland. Also, the fact that the latest transfer came through a bank in Switzerland could make that link diff icult to prove. My personal opinion is that the case will do more harm from a public image point of view than in criminal charges, he said. The new embarrassment comes after allegations that Alcatel Alsthom SA chief Pierre Suard used company resources to improve his own home, and that Alcatel overcharged France Telecom on a string of equipment contracts.
