2023-05-04 14:46:36
A former vice-president of a subsidiary of the Caisse de depot, Martine Gaudreault, also ran a money lending business that went so far as to demand a usurious interest rate of more than 78%.
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Disturbing facts were revealed Thursday morning in Superior Court regarding Martine Gaudreault, who was vice-president of Otéra Capital before being fired in May 2019 in the wake of journalistic reports from our Investigation Office regarding her.
The Caisse de depot et placement, which had commissioned a $5 million external investigation following our reports, realized that Gaudreault was committing serious breaches of his organization’s code of ethics.
The Caisse’s lawyer, Mason Poplaw, flaunted these discoveries in the context of the $6.9 million lawsuit brought once morest Quebeckers by the former CEO of Otéra, Alfonso Graceffa, telling him also dismissed in the wake of the investigation.
Photo QMI Agency, Joël Lemay
Alfonso Graceffa
– “Did you know that Martine Gaudreault was running a loan operation at the same time when she was at Otéra?” Asked Ms.e Poplaw.
– “No”, answered Graceffa, who was Mrs. Gaudreault’s boss at Otéra.
$2000 interest in one week
“The nature, frequency and amounts” of this loan operation were completely inappropriate, according to the Caisse’s lawyer.
The institution notably mentions a commercial personal loan of $180,000, which provided for “$2,000 in interest in one week”, according to Mr. Poplaw. This represents an annual interest rate of 78.20%.
The loan would also have been granted from the professional email of Mme Gaudreault at Otéra.
According to the federal government, “the “usurious loan” or “usury loan” is officially recognized in Canada as an offense under the Criminal Code when the effective rate of interest charged (…) exceeds an annual rate of 60%.”
In the report of its 2019 external investigation, the fund had alluded to this loan, but it was not known until now that it was linked to Martine Gaudreault.
Organized crime
In February 2019, our Bureau of Investigation reported that Mr.me Gaudreau was in a relationship with Alain Cormier, a private lender linked to the Rizzuto mafia clan. We also revealed that the two lovebirds had been involved together in three companies since 2012.
Questioned at the Court on Thursday, Alfonso Graceffa indicated that he was not aware of the loan activities carried out by his subordinate while he was at Otéra. He would not say whether he would have tolerated the situation if he had known regarding it at the time.
“As far as links with organized crime are concerned, this is totally unacceptable,” he nevertheless agreed.
The Caisse believes that Graceffa lacked judgment and transparency” on ethical issues, and that is why she showed him the door. The trial will last at least two weeks.
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