Dominique Strauss-Kahn

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 2008.

IMF

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a French economist and politician who served (2007–11) as the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—the United Nations agency that helps maintain a stable global system of currency exchange and promotes balanced economic growth.

Strauss-Kahn was raised in Agadir, southwestern Morocco, where his parents were employed. However, in 1960—following one of the most deadly and destructive earthquakes in Moroccan history—the family relocated to Monaco. Strauss-Kahn attended high school at the Lycée Carnot in Paris, earning top grades, and gained acceptance to the School of Higher Commercial Studies in Paris. There he received a degree in business (1971), to which he added a degree in political science from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (1972). He subsequently obtained a degree in public law as well as a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Paris.

After completing his education, Strauss-Kahn was hired as a professor of economics at the University of Nancy and later at the University of Paris, where he was granted tenure in 1978. Three years later he was appointed deputy commissioner of the Economic Planning Agency (1981–86). From 1986 he was a member of the French National Assembly, and he chaired its finance committee from 1988 to 1991. He wed French journalist Anne Sinclair in 1991 (divorced 2013).

From 1991 to 1993 Strauss-Kahn served as France’s minister of industry and international trade, and he worked from 1993 to 1997 as a corporate lawyer in the private sector. He later served as the country’s minister of economy, finance, and industry (1997–99), as which he oversaw the debut of the euro—the monetary unit and currency of the European Union. He was employed from 2000 to 2001 as an economics professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. Strauss-Kahn also served as an adviser for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of countries devoted to promoting sustainable economic growth. In the campaign for the 2007 presidential election, he unsuccessfully sought the nomination of France’s Socialist Party. In the same year, French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy helped persuade the IMF’s executive board to select Strauss-Kahn to head the agency. In 2010, at the Bilderberg Conference—an annual three-day conference attended by about 100 of the world’s most influential bankers, economists, politicians, and government officials—Strauss-Kahn controversially proposed to attendants the introduction of a global currency backed by a global central bank.

In May 2011 Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York City for allegedly having sexually assaulted a maid in a Manhattan hotel. He was subsequently charged with multiple counts of sexual assault, including attempted rape, criminal sexual act, forcible touching, sexual abuse, and unlawful imprisonment. On May 18 Strauss-Kahn resigned his position with the IMF. The following day it was announced that he had been indicted on seven counts. Strauss-Kahn was released from jail in May under strict conditions of house arrest after posting $1 million in bail and a $5 million insurance bond, but in July, after prosecutors uncovered evidence casting doubt on the credibility of his accuser, the cash and bond were returned to Strauss-Kahn, and he was released from house arrest. In August all charges against Strauss-Kahn were dropped.

A French investigation of a writer’s July 2011 claim that Strauss-Kahn had attempted to rape her during a 2003 interview was halted in October 2011 after prosecutors concluded that Strauss-Kahn’s behaviour toward her qualified for a lesser charge of sexual assault. The statute of limitations on sexual assault in France is three years. In 2013 he was charged with aggravated pimping for allegedly procuring prostitutes for sex parties. He went on trial in 2015 and was acquitted later that year.

During this time, Strauss-Kahn resumed his career in finance. In 2013 he joined the board of the Russian Regional Development Bank, which was owned by Rosneft, a state-owned oil company in Russia. That year he also began working at Anatevka, a Luxembourg-based investment firm that was subsequently renamed Leyne, Strauss-Kahn, and Partners (LSK). However, it closed in 2014 after declaring bankruptcy.