Rachida Dati, 60, appeared before a court in Paris in a corruption case linked to Renault-Nissan. According to investigators, she received €900,000 in legal fees from the automaker’s Dutch subsidiary while she was a Member of the European Parliament, and the court must decide exactly what those payments were for.
Dati’s defense rejects all accusations and insists that she worked for this entity “exclusively” as a lawyer. French prosecutors, by contrast, say she was paid to lobby for Renault-Nissan, an activity prohibited for Members of the European Parliament; according to them, there is not enough evidence of legal work.
The prosecution also cites a legal services contract signed in 2009 between Dati and Carlos Ghosn, the former head of Renault-Nissan. Investigators believe the contract, with an annual fee of €300,000, was used to conceal lobbying work.
Dati has been under investigation since 2019 on suspicion of illegally lobbying for Renault-Nissan between October 2009 and February 2013, when she was a Member of the European Parliament. In the same trial, Ghosn is also being tried alongside her, and he will be judged in absentia.
The prosecution obtained this contract in 2019 during a search of Renault’s headquarters after Ghosn was arrested in Japan. If Dati is found guilty, she faces up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to €450,000, and a five-year ban on holding public office; in a separate investigation, she is also accused of receiving nearly €300,000 in undeclared payments from the energy group GDF Suez, also while working in the European Parliament.
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