By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)- The board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday day said its confidence in the ability of Christine Lagarde as the managing director (MD) of the fund to effectively carry out her duties.

This is contained in a Statement from the IMF and made available to InvestAdvocate.

“As we have said before, it would not be appropriate to comment on a case that has been and is currently before the French judiciary. However, the executive board has been briefed on recent developments related to this matter, and continues to express its confidence in the managing director’s ability to effectively carry out her duties.”

Lagarde is facing a special Paris court over her role in the 400 million euro ($520 million) pay-off to a businessman when she was finance minister of France.

According to reports, the payment was made to Bernard Tapie, a businessman as part of a private arbitration process to settle a dispute with state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais over the botched sale of Adidas in the 1990s.