IMF chief Christine Lagarde's career faces ruin after she is found GUILTY of criminal negligence

Paris judges on Monday found IMF chief Christine Lagarde guilty of financial negligence leaving her tenure at the organisation dangling by a thread.
The 60-year-old was not in the specially convened Court of Justice of the Republic to hear the 'symbolic verdict' and reports suggest she has returned to the US where she lives and works.
Instead it was left to her defence barrister Patrick Maisonneuve to say: 'We would have preferred an acquittal pure and simple'.

Ms Lagarde will not be punished nor obtain a criminal record and has escaped a possible year in prison and a 13,000 euro fine.
Her lawyers said she is looking to overturn the verdict, according to a Reuters source.
Colleagues at the IMF – which is meant to safeguard global financial stability – have supported her throughout her court ordeal, and were by no means expecting a guilty verdict.
And soon after the verdict a spokesperson for the organisation announced that officials were to meet shortly to discuss the implications of the surprise guilty verdict.
'The Executive Board has met on previous occasions to consider developments related to the legal proceedings in France. It is expected that the Board will meet again shortly to consider the most recent developments,' fund spokesman Gerry Rice said in a statement.
Should Lagarde be ousted from her position close friend and ally of George Osborne has be touted as a replacement.
As chancellor he backed her for the top job at the IMF in 2011 – and also supported her staying on for a second term this year.
During the referendum campaign the IMF delivered a series of dire warnings about the consequences of a Brexit vote, as Mr Osborne pushed his ill-fated Project Fear campaign to keep our ties with Brussels.
However, the salary of around £300,000 a year would require the MP to take a pay cut.
Mr Osborne recently received more than £320,000 for making speeches at corporate events over the course of a month
Prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin had told the court during the trial: 'The hearings have not backed up a very weak charge'.
Despite this, Ms Lagarde was found guilty of 'negligence by a person in a position of public authority'.
More specifically, Mrs Lagade was accused of paying flamboyant businessman Bernard Tapie £335m when she was France's finance minister eight years ago.
A scornful report by investigating judges accused Mrs Lagarde of 'a conjunction of faults which, by their nature, number and seriousness, exceed the level of mere negligence.'
In turn, a sobbing Mrs Lagarde told the court on Friday: 'This five day hearing put an end to a five-year ordeal for my partner, my sons, my brothers, who are here in this courtroom.
'In this case, like in all the other cases, I acted with trust and with a clear conscience with the only intention of defending the public interest.'
She denied acting on the orders of her immediate boss in 2008, the controversial former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Mr Sarkozy, who is facing numerous corruption accusations of his own, was a notorious ally of the super rich before his political career ended.
The complicated Lagarde case dated back to France being sued for compensation by Mr Tapie after he sold his stake in sports company Adidas to Credit Lyonnais in 1993.
Mr Tapie claimed the bank, which was state owned at the time, had defrauded him after it resold his stake for a much higher sum.
Mrs Lagarde, who was finance minister from 2007 to 2011, signed off on the massive out-of-court settlement to Mr Tapie, a Sarkozy supporter.
Although arbitration judges originally ruled in Mr Tapie's favour and sanctioned the £335m payment, appeal courts have since ruled against it.
Mr Tapie has accordingly been told to reimburse the state, but continues to fight the refund through his lawyers.

He is no stranger to court action, having been sentenced in 1995 to two years in prison for match fixing when he was the owner of Marseille football club.
Beyond prison, Mrs Lagarde had faced a fine equivalent to £12,500, but that too has now been ruled out.
Mrs Lagarde's trial was only the fifth in the history of the Court of Justice of the Republic, a special tribunal sitting at the Paris Palais de Justice that tries ministers for crimes in office.
It is composed of three judges and 12 parliamentarians drawn from the National Assembly and Senate.
The court sat in the chamber where Queen Marie Antoinette was sentenced to death by guillotine in 1793.
Mrs Lagarde's immediate predecessor at the IMF was fellow countryman Dominique Strauss-Kahn who quit in 2011 after being accused of trying to rape a chambermaid in a New York hotel room.
Mr Strauss-Kahn, also a former French finance minister, faced a series of other sex scandals, including criminal trials, but was eventually cleared on all charges.
Spaniard Rodrigo Rato, another former IMF chief, is currently standing trial for misusing funds when he was head of Bankia.

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