IMF says Lagarde to brief board ‘soon as possible’

The International Monetary Fund said that Managing Director Christine Lagarde, charged in France Wednesday with negligence in a graft case, would return to Washington soon to brief the IMF board.

Lagarde said after the French court of justice placed her under formal investigation that she had no plan to resign.

IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said that the global crisis lender’s board would meet with her shortly on the issue.

“She is now on her way back to Washington and will, of course, brief the board as soon as possible. Until then, we have no further comment,” Rice said in a statement.

Lagarde, previously France’s finance minister, has led the IMF since July 2011 when she was chosen for a five-year term after the resignation of her predecessor, France’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn, over a sex scandal involving a hotel maid.

The case relates to her handling of a 400-million-euro ($527-million) state payout to disgraced French tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2008, which investigating judges suspect may have been doled out in return for his support of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 election.