Key facts
- The Paris judge ordered psychiatrists to check whether Puech, 83, could be mentally impaired, two people with direct knowledge said.
- A finding that Puech was vulnerable and taken advantage of could lower the bar for criminal liability, the sources said.
- Puech's missing 6% Hermès stake is worth about $9 billion at current market prices, per the report.
- Montavon, who denies wrongdoing, appealed the judge's order for cognitive checks on Puech, the sources said.
- Neither LVMH nor Arnault has been named a formal suspect in the criminal investigation.
- LVMH said in a June court filing that any purchase of Puech's shares would have been unintentional.
A Paris judge investigating the missing fortune of Hermès heir Nicolas Puech has ordered a team of psychiatrists to assess whether the 83-year-old could be mentally impaired, two people with direct knowledge of the decision said. The order has not been previously reported.
The sources said any finding that Puech was vulnerable and taken advantage of could lower the bar for criminal liability in the probe into his missing shares. Exploiting a person's reduced mental capacities for undue financial profit is a special offense under French law known as abuse of weakness.
Puech says he was stripped of his 6% stake in Hermès, worth about $9 billion at current market prices. He has named LVMH and its billionaire chairman Bernard Arnault as defendants in a civil lawsuit seeking €14 billion ($15.5 billion) in damages from whoever is found guilty in the parallel criminal investigation.
Prosecutors have focused on Freymond and Swiss lawyer Alexandre Montavon, who advised LVMH on its covert stakebuilding in the 2000s. Montavon, who denies wrongdoing, was placed under investigation in May on suspicion of misappropriating Puech's Hermès shares for LVMH's benefit, and he has appealed the judge's order for cognitive checks on the heir, the sources said.
Neither LVMH nor Arnault has been named a formal suspect. In a June court filing, LVMH denied it had ever tried to acquire Puech's shares through schemes involving his late wealth manager, and said any purchase of Puech's shares would have been unintentional. Before his death in 2025, Freymond denied any wrongdoing during questioning by Paris prosecutors.
Reuters reported in September that LVMH eyed Puech's Hermès shares through a pact struck with Freymond in 2002 and paid at least $20 million in commissions and fees for his services in the Hermès stock build-up. LVMH accumulated as much as 23% of Hermès before agreeing to liquidate its stake in a 2014 truce. Puech has said he did not discover his shares had vanished until 2022, after he cut ties with Freymond. The office of French financial crime prosecutors declined to comment, and spokespersons for Puech and LVMH declined to comment.