Bad news for the french taxpayer  Because, in the event of a lawsuit for corruption in the United States, the rule is that the amount of the fine covers the totality of the financial loss. Admittedly, the prosecutor could simply claim Areva $ 243 million corresponding to the amount of the acquisition of Ausra. But it can also very well demand the reimbursement of all the federal expenses incurred in the case, namely: the $ 7.7 billion invested in the MOX plant ever built, the $ 19.9 billion that will be swallowed up in the management of unprocessed plutonium and the 243 million of the Ausra acquisition, totaling nearly $ 28 billion, or, if you prefer, € 24.1 billion at the current rate.

Needless to say, since Orano does not have a penny in its pocket, the state should go to the cash register. The only way to avoid such a disaster, argue the jurists, would be that the French justice sanctions itself guilty.

AREVA BUSINESS: THE MONSTROUS FINE THAT THREATENS FRANCE ,https://www.capital.fr/entreprises-marches/affaire-areva-la-monstrueuse-amende-qui-menace-la-france-1308725 (translation Noel Wauchope)  THIERRY GADAULT    27/09/2018 The nuclear group could be fined 24 billion euros by the US justice in a corruption case in the United States. A file that could embarrass Anne Lauvergeon but also Edouard Philippe, at Areva at the time of the facts.

·         Forget the scandal Credit Lyonnais 1990s and the 15 billion euros it has cost France. The Areva case is about to break all records. According to our information, the US justice discreetly warned the French authorities in early July  that it could launch a trial for corruption against the former tricolor nuclear star. And that in case of conviction, the fine could go up to … 24 billion euros, the equivalent of one third of income tax revenue.

·         Since then, Areva has been cut in three (since being acquired by EDF) and was renamed Orano, as if to give it a new start. Alas! Now that a possible corruption pact, concluded in 2010 by the company with leaders of the American Democratic Party, threatens to explode for good.

·         A case that could also smirch the Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, director of public affairs of Areva at the time.

“When, at the beginning of the year, I discovered the scale of this affair, I communicated with the director of the FBI all the information that  I had been able to get my hands on”, Marc Eichinger revealed to Capital . This private investigator specializing in the fight against serious international crime and corruption is very aware of the case: it was he who wrote the report submitted in April 2010 to the security department of Areva to denounce the potential fraud related the redemption of Uramin three years earlier.

·         Stunned by this new case of corruption in the United States, he also forwarded the whole file to French justice, causing a heating up of the investigation in a summer, already scorching. According to our information, the financial brigade, in charge of Areva’s sprawling affairs, recommended to the National Financial Office (PNF) to open a new instruction for “bribery of foreign public official and trading in influence”. But at the beginning of September, when we wrote these lines, the PNF had still not followed these recommendations.

At the heart of this new scandal, which has not yet erupted in the United States, the conditions in which Areva acquired, in February 2010, is Ausra, an American startup specializing in solar energy. Officially, according to the French group, the purchase price would have been $ 243 million. Problem: An Ausra leader claims to have sold the company for $ 275 million. At the time, Areva had contented itself with the union minimum in terms of communication: the press kit did not mention any amount, nor the precise identity of the main selling shareholders.

At first sight, Anne Lauvergeon, at the time patron of the French nuclear group, should have boasted of this acquisition. Among these shareholders was Al Gore, the former Vice President Bill Clinton became, since his failure in the presidential election in 2000, the new world champion of renewable energy. The former Democratic candidate had acquired his shares by participating in capital increases (totaling $ 123.3 million) through the two investment funds he chairs or advises, Kleiner Perkins (formerly KPCB). and Generation Investment Management.

·If Anne Lauvergeon preferred to remain discreet, it is because, at the time, Areva was already in a complicated financial situation. A few weeks before this acquisition, in January 2010, a meeting of the Nuclear Policy Council, held at the Elysée in the presence of all the main players in the sector, led to the conclusion that it needed to be recapitalised. ’emergency. The operation was carried out a few months later: the company obtains 900 million euros, 600 million being paid by the sovereign fund of Kuwait, the KIA, and 300 million by the State.

·         In this very constrained environment, one can wonder about the opportunity to acquire Ausra. Especially since the start-up is itself in a difficult financial situation, and its technology (concentrated solar thermal energy) is not revolutionary. It is even a little outdated since the first solar power plants of this type were built in the 1980s.

Why did Areva agree to release so much money for Ausra? This question, Marc Eichinger was asked for several years before discovering the truth. This former director of trading rooms has indeed ended up getting hold of many compromising documents for the French group. Starting with this exchange of emails in December 2009 between Olivier Fric – the husband of Anne Lauvergeon, who has nothing to do with Areva – and a senior leader of the group. Fric proposes to raise with Areva a fund, of which he would be co-shareholder, to make acquisitions in renewable energies. “Impossible!”, Replies the leader after consulting his boss, arguing that the group does not have the means to lead this kind of policy. This will not prevent Areva from offering Ausra two months later. Nor did Olivier Fric become a shareholder in 2011, through Agave Partners Holdings, a company formed with an American businessman.

The discovery of this hodgepodge led Marc Eichinger to deepen his investigation in the United States. And to work in particular on the incredible history of the plant that Areva was responsible for building on behalf of the Department of Energy (a case that Capital revealed in its January 2017 issue), and which we will see , is in direct contact with the Ausra file.

·         This future establishment was supposed to ensure the transformation into MOX (a nuclear fuel) of the 34 tons of military plutonium that Washington had committed to remove as part of a disarmament agreement with Russia. Its cost was estimated at 1.4 billion dollars, and commissioning scheduled for 2005. Alas! Eleven years later, it still had not seen the light of day. And according to a report from the US Army given to the US government, its bill had risen to $ 17.4 billion and its opening pushed back to 2048!

Since then, the American Congress has come to the obvious: it ended this project, called “Mox Services”, at the beginning of this year. But this small business will still cost about $ 7.7 billion in the federal budget in vain! In fact, this case should have stopped much sooner. In 2009, alarming reports multiplied on the inability of Areva and its American partner to build the plant. And Duke Energy, the only owner of local nuclear power plants ready to use the MOX as fuel, said after a series of failed tests that he would not choose this solution.

·         The production of the future factory of Areva no longer having any outlet, the project should have been abandoned immediately. Instead, the Obama administration and Areva persisted. And, miraculously, a few months later, a new MOX client arrived, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federal agency created in 1933 by President Roosevelt to domesticate the Mississippi River and produce water for ‘electricity. This unexpected salvation plan would allow the federal administration to convince the Congress to continue financing the work.

Nothing special ? Except that the VAT is very close to the family of Al Gore! The father of the future US vice president, himself Tennessee’s Democratic senator for several decades, made it so that during the presidential race of 2000, the US press will present VAT as the “candy store” (the candy shop) of the family of the Democratic candidate. Suddenly, the intervention of this federal agency in the Mox Services file, which occurs at the time of the acquisition of Ausra to Al Gore by Areva, raises questions. This one would not it be the counterpart of this one?

·         The case does not involve  only the former vice-president. Three other big names of the Democratic Party are mentioned in the file. Starting with John Kerry, the future Secretary of State of Barack Obama during his second term. The former unfortunate presidential candidate of 2004 was then senator and chairman of the foreign affairs committee. At the end of January 2009, during a public senatorial hearing and in the presence of Al Gore, he drew up a long eulogy of Ausra, saying that this society represents the future.

·         Coincidentally, John Kerry is also a shareholder of the fund that has invested in Ausra! The day of this hearing, the boss of the start-up will however announce, in an interview with the Californian daily The Mercury News, the abandonment of most of the projects mentioned by John Kerry because of his financial difficulties ..

·         The second big figure of the Democratic Party involved in the story is an American businessman: John Doerr. He co-leads Kleiner Perkins and is known to be one of the party’s leading fundraisers. He is very close to the Clinton and the Obama administration: in February 2009, the White House catapults him to the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, an organization that advises the president. The many financial benefits John Doerr will get during the Obama presidency will generate so many scandals (this is the case of Solyndra in 2011), forcing Energy Minister Steven Chu to step down.

The third Democratic Democrat is none other than Senator Harry Reid, the leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate between 2006 and 2014. He too has done a lot to publicly support Ausra, including in his state, Nevada, by proposing the provision of land to build solar plants. He is also an unconditional supporter of Areva: in 2010, he pleaded with Barack Obama for the government to grant the French group the repayable loan of $ 2 billion to finance a project for the enrichment plant. uranium in Idaho. The latter, christened “Eagle Rock”, would finally be abandoned in 2012.

·
Finally, the Obama administration was very generous with Ausra: in February 2010, at the time of its acquisition by Areva, it received a federal grant (non refundable) of $ 13.9 million for a solar plant project in California whose cost is estimated at 40 million. According to Marc Eichinger, this public aid, which represents 34% of the construction cost, is the fifth largest subsidy (compared to the cost of construction) granted by the US Treasury in the context of financing renewable energies.

Despite this, Ausra, renamed Areva Solar, has only generated losses. And it was finally liquidated in 2015. The construction of the Mox Services plant was also stopped, but the bill will continue to inflate the US federal budget. To be able to safely store the military plutonium (very unstable matter) that was meant to be converted into MOX fuel, Washington will indeed have to spend some $ 19.9 billion, according to a study by the Department of Energy!

Bad news for the taxpayer … French. Because, in the event of a lawsuit for corruption in the United States, the rule is that the amount of the fine covers the totality of the financial loss. Admittedly, the prosecutor could simply claim Areva $ 243 million corresponding to the amount of the acquisition of Ausra. But it can also very well demand the reimbursement of all the federal expenses incurred in the case, namely: the $ 7.7 billion invested in the MOX plant ever built, the $ 19.9 billion that will be swallowed up in the management of unprocessed plutonium and the 243 million of the Ausra acquisition, totaling nearly $ 28 billion, or, if you prefer, € 24.1 billion at the current rate.

·         Needless to say, since Orano does not have a penny in its pocket, the state should go to the cash register. The only way to avoid such a disaster, argue the jurists, would be that the French justice sanctions itself guilty. When questioned by Capital, the management of Orano and the State Investment Agency (which represents the State on the Orano Board of Directors) indicated that they had no knowledge of a judicial investigation concerning the American activities. of the society. Contacted through Master Versini-Campinchi, Anne Lauvergeon did not want to answer us. In return, his lawyer simply treated Marc Eichinger by SMS “rat exhausted”  https://www.capital.fr/entreprises-marches/affaire-areva-la-monstrueuse-amende-qui-menace-la-france-1308725