After the searches on Tuesday at the respective headquarters of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop) and of Solideo, the company in charge of the construction of the Olympic sites, the Keneo sports consultancy firm was, on Wednesday 21 June, in the crosshairs of the investigators of the National Finance Prosecutor (PNF).
The search of Keneo’s premises, in central Paris, began in the morning and ended in the early afternoon, according to judicial sources, confirming information from Agence France-Presse (AFP).
It is part of an investigation into the contracts awarded for the Games, opened in 2017 by the PNF and entrusted to the Central Office for the fight against corruption and financial and tax crimes. Keneo’s governing bodies were not immediately available to react.
This investigation concerns a number of contracts awarded, among others, by “the Organizing Committee of the 2024 Olympic Games and the 2024 GIP”, the offer committee, which preceded the Cojop, the PNF said on Tuesday. The crimes contemplated are: illicit theft of interest, embezzlement of public funds, favoritism and concealment of favouritism.
In a May 2017 article, four months before Paris was designated host city of the Games, Mediapart had shown that Keneo had received €2 million in GIP 2024 contracts while there were potential conflicts of interest between the team responsible for preparing the French bid and the event agency.
At that time, the director general of the Paris 2024 bid committee was (since July 2015) Etienne Thobois, who had previously been Keneo’s boss: in the summer of 2017, he assured that he had sold, in the spring of 2015, his shares in this company that he co-founded. Mr. Thobois is now CEO of Paris 2024.
It was Edouard Donnelly who succeeded, between 2015 and 2018, Mr. Thobois as director of Keneo, which he had co-founded with the latter. After participating in the creation, at the end of 2020, of an agency specialized in the development of sports events, called RNK, Mr. Donnelly became, in November 2022, Cojop’s executive director of operations. RNK is part of a group of companies which was awarded the contract to organize the Olympic torch relay.
In late 2022, Cojop’s management gave assurances that its ethics committee had found nothing wrong with possible conflicts of interest. Mr Donnelly had been asked to sell his shares in RNK and not deal with contracts that his former companies might apply for. According to AFP, the source familiar with the matter clarified that RNK was not targeted by either of the two ongoing investigations.
Our selection of articles on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games
Find all our content on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games:
The CIO displays a “high level of trust” on preparation for the Olympic Games
OJ: The Court of Auditors considers that the Paris 2024 budget remains marked by “big uncertainties”
The price of seats
With 6.8 million tickets sold, Tony Estanguet defends himself “Games open to the greatest number”
- Environmental problems
The difficult bet of the “green” Olympics.
- The question of the presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes
More than three-quarters of Russian medals at the Tokyo Games do not fit the IOC’s model of neutrality
“Several hundreds of thousands of spectators” free access and 35,000 law enforcement for the opening ceremony
The great transport challenge
- The social issues highlighted by the Games
Accessibility for people with disabilities is slow to implement
Gender equality at the Games cannot make us forget the slow feminization of sporting practice
In Pessac, sports clubs want to offer people with disabilities “a practice as for any member”
jostled, the ” model “ The French sports association is looking for a new lease on life
- Seine-Saint-Denis and the Games
The 2024 Olympics in Paris, a distant horizon in popular neighborhoods
In Bobigny, nearby construction sites, but distant jobs for young people in integration
On Airbnb, the Olympic Games make Parisian owners fantasize
The Paris 2024 Olympics accelerate the transformation of north-east Paris
- The Games are not just Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis
Thanks to the Paris 2024 Olympics, Grigny wants to create “a local olympic ecosystem”
Olympic Games 2024: the Meuse wants to take advantage of the Games to develop its attractiveness through sport