Former French finance minister and current International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has being placed under formal investigation by French magistrates for negligence in a corruption case known as the "Tapie Affair," reported French media Wednesday.
Lagarde - who was questioned in the case for the fourth time Tuesday - has not been charged, and has stated that she has no plans to resign.
France's Le Monde newspaper reported that Lagarde had been placed under investigation, quoting a French wire service.
Judges are seeking to determine the exact role the former finance minister had in the state's €400 million ($560 million) payment to Bernard Tapie, as part of a long-running dispute between the French businessman and the partly state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais over the sale of his Adidas sportswear company in 1993.
Tapie has claimed that the bank had intentionally undervalued the sale.
Stephane Richard, the CEO of French multinational telecommunications company Orange, is one of the five people, along with Tapie himself, charged with fraud in the affair.
The payment to Tapie, who backed then-president Nicolas Sarkozy for election, was decided by an arbitration panel.
