Florencio Campomanes - Charges of Fraud

Charges of Fraud

On 5 February 2003, the Philippine anti-graft court Sandiganbayan convicted Campomanes for failure to account for the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) government funds amounting to PhP12.876 million (or US$238,746 at an exchange rate of PhP53.932 = $1). The PSC entrusted these funds to the FIDE for the World Chess Olympiad in Manila, hosted by the Philippine government from 6 to 25 June 1992. Subsequently, Florencio Campomanes was sentenced to one year and 10 months imprisonment. According to a FIDE Press Release, dated 16 January 2007, Campomanes was cleared of these charges by the Philippine Supreme Court in December 2006, though FIDE's release states that the penalty was the equivalent of a 100 euro fine.

The charges against Campomanes were overturned based upon a technicality. There was never any resolution as to the disposition of the 12.876 million pesos mentioned above. The rationale for the reversal was that the Supreme Court of the Philippines decided that Campomanes was not a government official to whom the anti-graft laws applied. Thus as a non-government official, Campomanes had no duty under the law to render an accounting of the missing funds.