IMF Appoints Interim Director

The New York Times reports:

Hours after its chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested in connection with the alleged sexual attack of a maid at a Midtown Manhattan hotel, the International Monetary Fund on Sunday named John Lipsky as acting managing director.

Mr. Lipsky, the I.M.F.’s first deputy managing director, is a former U.S. Treasury executive and onetime banker at JP Morgan. William Murray, an I.M.F. spokesman, said that Mr. Lipsky, who has been overseeing the logistics of the bailout of the Greek economy, would meet with members of the I.M.F. board in Washington later in the day, according to Reuters.

“In line with standard I.M.F. procedures, John Lipsky, first deputy managing director, is acting managing director while the M.D. is not in D.C.,” Mr. Murray said in a statement. “Mr. Lipsky will chair the informal Board session today.”

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, was awaiting arraignment on Sunday afternoon in Manhattan. The New York Police Department formallly arrested him at 2:15 that morning “on charges of criminal sexual act, attempted rape, and an unlawful imprisonment in connection with a sexual assault on a 32-year-old chambermaid in the luxury suite of a Midtown Manhattan hotel yesterday” about 1 p.m., Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said.

Reached by telephone, Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer, said he would be representing Mr. Strauss-Kahn with William Taylor, a lawyer in Washington.