Jean-Louis Gergorin

Jean-Louis Gergorin is a former French diplomat and former executive vice president of EADS – the giant European aerospace company that controls Airbus.
He was at the origin of the Clearstream 2 scandal in France, which raised much turmoil in the French political life from 2006 to 2010. He was later found in this case guilty of slanderous denunciation, use of forgery, concealment of breach of trust and theft.

Education

Gergorin was educated at two top French schools, the École Polytechnique and École Nationale d'Administration. Gergorin was also a research fellow at the RAND Corporation and the John F. Kennedy School of Government and is a graduate of the Executive Education Program at Stanford Business School.

Career

In 1973, Gergorin was cofounder and deputy head of the Policy Planning Staff of the French Foreign Ministry. From 1979 to 1984 he was Director of Policy Planning, reporting directly to the French Foreign Minister.

In November 1984 he joined the aerospace group Matra as Senior Vice President for Strategy, starting a close association with CEO Jean-Luc Lagardère that lasted until Lagardère’s sudden death in March 2003. Between 1998 and 2000, together with Lagardère and Co-CEO, Philippe Camus, Gergorin played a major role in the series of national and transnational mergers that triggered the formation of EADS – the world’s second largest aerospace company.

During his time at EADS, Gergorin served as Executive Vice President for Strategy, member of the Executive Committee, and as a member of the Shareholder’s Committee (Board of Directors) for its Airbus subsidiary. In this final capacity, Gergorin was particularly active in the expansion of EADS in the U.S. and U.K. markets.

The Clearstream scandal

Trial, judgments and conviction.

In May 2006, Gergorin admitted that he had anonymously sent a list of various political figures and businesspersons who were allegedly involved in a large money laundering scheme to the French Investigative Magistrate, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, in 2004.
The case, known as Clearstream 2, was widely followed in the press in France, as this list contained the name of future President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and it turned out later that his name was added to the list by either Gergorin or Lahoud, who was working for him. Gergorin has stated publicly that he and Magistrate Van Ruymbeke met and agreed on this course of action for security concerns.

Gergorin was subsequently put under investigation for transmitting these lists and the investigation proved that many of the names in Gergorin’s transmission had been fabricated. This discovery caused Gergorin to leave his position at EADS.

Throughout this matter, Gergorin has maintained that he sent the information to the magistrate in good faith because he was totally convinced of the authenticity of his information and the truthfulness of his source - a mathematician turned computer expert named Imad Lahoud.

In 2007 Gergorin published a book named Rapacités (Greed) in which he publicly articulated his claim to have been a good faith whistleblower who has been framed through for his willingness to understand the causes of the unexpected death of Lagardère.

It turned out during investigations and at the trial that Gergorin had asked Lahoud to add names to the list.

On October 20, 2009, the public prosecutor requested 18 months in prison and a 45,000 € fine against Jean-Louis Gergorin.
On January 28, 2010, he was found guilty of slanderous denunciation, use of forgery, concealment of breach of trust and theft, and sentenced to 3 years in prison including 15 months firm prison and 40,000 euros fine by the Paris criminal court.
The judgment reveals and is relentless to Mr. Gergorin's deception and lies:
"He is the initiator and the principal author of the crimes of slanderous denunciations. He used for this purpose documents of which he knew the fraudulent source and which he knew altered. He acted to satisfy personal interests (... ) it was quickly inhabited by an intention to harm, partly under the pernicious and harmful influence of Imad Lahoud ".
"Whereas JLG has particularly and repeatedly targeted victims who have become targets and otherwise adversaries in industrial rivalry; that his denunciations have considerably increased the devastating, even destructive, effect of the intention to harm him lived (...) and whose choice answered only one logic: that of giving credibility to its fight against a chimerical enemy by the use of data of which it knew the lying character ".
"Whereas JLG has been able to instrumentalize the authorities; that it has staged its steps, giving them an appearance of credibility and legitimacy (..) that the use of emblematic or easily accessible authorities, while knowing that the general Rondot, as the investigating judge acted in secrecy and compartmentalization, enabled JLG, the only one to master the labyrinthine process of slander, to continue his harmful work (...)
"Whereas Jean-Louis Gergorin must be considered as fully responsible for his actions, which reveal a particularly harmful and disturbing personality due to an exceptional duplicity (...) that the exceptional extent of the scheme did as equal as the relentless determination thanks to which JLG, with the collaboration of Imad Lahoud, built his trap and the deep contempt in which they both held the ministerial and judicial authorities (...) to a prison sentence therefore appears justified" "'
He appealed the decision.
On September 14, 2011, the Court of Appeal of Paris confirmed the previous decision, and Gergorin was sentenced to 3 years of prison, out of which 6 months firm.
His revision claim was dismissed by the Court of Cassation on February 27, 2013, making the previous conviction final.

Awards & Activities

Gergorin has been the recipient of various honors and awards; most notably sharing the 1989 Aviation Week Laureate Award with Jean-Luc Lagardère and Philippe Camus. Gergorin was later inducted into the Aviation Week "Laureates Hall of Fame" at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

Gergorin spoke at the 1998 Bilderberg Meeting and was a guest at the 1997, 2002, and 2003 Bilderberg meetings.

Gergorin has also been credited as the organizer of “high-level” discussions concerning France’s strained relationship with the United States after the reelection of George W. Bush to the Presidency of the United States.
The talks involved American luminaries such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as well as a “similarly illustrious” list of French officials.

Current

Jean-Louis Gergorin lectured at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris.
He is a member of Institut Aspen.