Immunity for European central bankers limited to official acts, EU court rules

LUXEMBOURG (CN) — A former European central banker is not immune from bribery charges brought by the Latvian government, the European Union’s top court ruled Tuesday. 

Ilmars Rimsevics was given immunity as part of his role as a member of the European Central Bank, but the European Court of Justice held that doesn’t protect him from bribery charges in his home country of Latvia, as they aren’t related to his work at the ECB.

Rimsevics is accused of accepting half a million euros (about $569,000) in bribes from a Latvian bank, Trasta Komercbanka, as well as lavish trips in exchange for helping the bank pass inspections by the Financial and Capital Market Commission, the body responsible for supervising banks in the Baltic State. The 56-year-old denies all of the charges against him. 

The economist was the governor of the Central Bank of Latvia from 2001 to 2019 and served simultaneously as a member of the ECB Governing Council. The council, comprised of representatives from each country that uses the euro, is responsible for monetary policy for the Eurozone and the EU. ECB members, along with members of the European Parliament and other senior EU officials, are generally shielded from prosecution. 

An 11-judge panel of the Court of Justice concluded that Rimsevics is only immune from prosecution if the charges relate directly to his role on the ECB's governing body.

“Too broad an interpretation of immunity from legal proceedings, including the police and judicial investigation and preliminary criminal proceedings, would be liable to render EU officials and other servants virtually exempt from criminal liability,” the Luxembourg-based court's grand chamber wrote. 

During hearings in January, lawyers for the Frankfurt-based ECB defended Rimsevics, arguing that national governments needed to ask the institution to lift immunity to ensure that monetary policy wasn’t subjected to the whims of politics. But the EU's high court found that this requirement would place an undue burden on national governments if they had to ask for a waiver. 

In a separate case in 2019, the court found that the Latvian government did not have enough evidence to prosecute Rimsevics. His six-year term at the ECB ended in December of that year.   

Trasta Komercbanka had its operating license revoked by the ECB in 2016 for failing to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing. It was one of six banks caught up in the case of Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian tax lawyer who died under suspicious circumstances in prison after investigating fraud at the country’s tax office. In 2012, the United States passed The Magnisky Act, which punished Russian officials involved in Magnitsky’s arrest and death. 

Rimsevics isn’t the first ECB member to be charged with bribery. Peter Kazimir of Slovakia is currently facing pressure to step down as that country’s representative after he was charged with bribery earlier this month. Slovak prosecutors say he acted as a courier to pass a bribe to a senior tax office official. 

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