CHRISTINE LAGARDE launched her campaign for a second term as managing director of the International Monetary Fund on Friday with ringing endorsements from a host of major economies that looked past a court case against her in her native France.

    The former French finance minister who trained as a lawyer has no obvious challengers and has long been open to serving another five-year term. Britain and France backed her publicly Thursday. Others, including Germany, joined in after her announcement.

    “I am candidate for a new mandate. I was honored to receive from the start of the process the backing of France, Britain, Germany, China, South Korea,” Lagarde, 60, told France 2 television in an interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew stopped short of a formal endorsement, but appeared to suggest Washington wanted her to stay in the role.

    The early endorsements from such powerful economies may act as a disincentive for others to apply and mute any talk of her legal difficulties disqualifying her.

    Lagarde has been dogged off-and-on since her initial appointment in 2011 for her role in a long-running business scandal while she was France’s finance minister.

    Last month, a French judge ordered her to face trial for negligence in a special ministerial court over the 2008 payout of some 400 million euros (US$430 million) to businessman Bernard Tapie.

    Tapie himself was ordered last year to repay the money, which he received as state compensation for a business transaction in which he later claimed he had been defrauded.(SD-Agencies)