Étienne Thobois and Édouard Donnelly, two senior officials of the Organizing Committee for the 2024 Olympic Games (Cojo) in Paris, were searched on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), AFP learned on Friday. from judicial sources.
Confirming information from France TV, this source indicated that these operations “were carried out within the framework of the preliminary investigation of 2017” opened by the PNF. Entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (Oclciff), this investigation concerns a series of contracts awarded in particular by “the Organizing Committee for the 2024 Olympic Games and the GIP 2024 (the bid committee which preceded the Cojo),” the public prosecutor said on Tuesday.
Suspected conflicts of interest
The offenses covered are illegal taking of interests, embezzlement of public funds, favoritism and concealment of favouritism. After having been providers of the Olympic Games, MM. Thobois and Donnelly became the Cojo’s first chief executive in early 2018 and the Cojo’s second chief operating officer last November, raising suspicions of conflicts of interest.
In the 2022 activity report of which AFP was aware, the Cojo’s ethics committee recalls having issued “a favorable opinion” on the recruitment of Mr. Donnelly “subject to the strict observance of measures likely to prevent the latter cannot intervene or take any action in connection with the conflict of interest situation in which he finds himself with the company RNK”, a company which, according to a source familiar with the matter, is not targeted by the investigation.
The Keneo consulting firm
The ethics committee has largely ruled out any risk of such a conflict with Keneo, a sports consulting firm targeted by a search on Wednesday as part of the same investigation and which was co-founded by MM. Thobois and Donnelly.
In addition to Keneo, other searches were carried out on Tuesday in this investigation and in another opened in 2022 and also relating to contracts awarded within the framework of the Olympic Games, targeting the Cojo and the Olympic works delivery company (Solideo). The current CEO of Keneo Vincent de Bary told AFP on Wednesday that the search “concerned the activities of (the company) before 2020” and his arrival at the head of the consulting firm.
Interviewed in recent days, MM. Thobois and Donnelly did not respond to AFP.
