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At the end, Mrs. Lagarde?
Ethics charters are the latest hit in business communication, just as annual reports or environmental reports used
to be. The fine words are intended to show the customers/suppliers/partners/employees that all is right in this
business. The children’s nutritionist HIPP, for example, has such a Charter, as well as the “Verein Deutsche
Gesellschaft zum Studium des Schmerzes e. V.” (“German society for the Study of Pain”) or the automotive supplier
Faurecia. Following the scandal of the sex-obsessed Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund also
has such a charter, which was signed by the DSK successor Christine Lagarde. And according to
Focus,
the IMF went even further and arranged “ethics training” for Mrs. Lagarde, and obliged her “to account annually to
all 24 IMF Executive Directors for her” naturally “impeccable conduct”.
This all sounds as if we really had corruption-free and totally honest managers. However, aside from the dream,
because even the ethics charter cannot offer protection from unimpeachable conduct of earlier years. The Paris
Prosecutor’s Office is therefore investigating whether Mrs. Lagarde “embezzled funds” during her time as French
Finance Minister, “committed “abuse of office” and/or even “aiding and abetting fraud”.
The actual case itself is of no interest: what is interesting is that Focus claims that Lagarde was considered as
the most promising candidate for the upcoming presidential election in the year 2016. If “La Grande Nation” were to
go to the polls this year, then the 62-year old Lagarde would hardly be any hope for the French, because as
Chairwoman of the IMF she has contributed significantly to the deterioration of the value of the Euro, and has
hardly supported the French economy. In this respect the context seen by Focus is a nice thought that hopes to
recognise a legitimacy that might be common amongst popes, but certainly not amongst politicians.
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