MOSCOW - Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former chief of the International Monetary Fund whose career unraveled in a series of sex scandals, is making a comeback in finance - this time, in Russia.
Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, has given Mr. Strauss-Kahn a position on the board of a banking subsidiary, the Russian Regional Development Bank. It is one of the first prominent job offers since Mr. Straus-Kahn, a French economist and political leader, resolved the last of his legal troubles this year.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn was arrested in the United States in 2011 on charges, later dropped, of assaulting a maid in a New York hotel. He later faced charges in France, also eventually dismissed, of involvement in a ring that obtained prostitutes for sex parties.
The bank announced the appointment in a regulatory filing on Friday. It said Mr. Strauss-Kahn was also employed with a consulting agency called Parness. Rosneft’s media office declined to elaborate on the appointment or on how Mr. Strauss-Kahn would be compensated.
The Russian Regional Development Bank is hardly a financial heavyweight. It ranks No. 64 in Russia in size as measured by assets. Vedomosti, the leading Russian business newspaper, reported Rosneft may be seeking to raise the profile of the bank by hiring a former I.M.F. director.
Russian state-owned businesses and many in the private sector have for years recruited Western business and political figures for seats on their boards for positions that often pay lavishly. The Western presence on the board is intended to indicate an endorsement that the company will adhere to international and ethical business standards.
In one example, Gerhard Schroeder, the former chancellor of Germany, took a job on the board of a Gazprom pipeline joint venture and TNK-BP for a reported compensation of more than $200,000 a year.
President Vladimir V. Putin once personally offered a position of chairman of the board of Rosneft to Donald L. Evans, the former United States commerce secretary, saying the company was looking for “high-class†foreign management. Mr. Evans declined.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s appointment appeared baffling if the intention is to raise the confidence of foreign investors in Rosneft, said one banker in Moscow who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The banker added that “an American company might think that because of his sexual reputation he is actually a liability.â€
Last year, Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers negotiated a confidential settlement with Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid who had accused him of sexual assault in 2011. Mr. Strauss-Kahn was forced him to resign from the I.M.F. amid the ensuing publicity, but the charges were not pursued by the Manhattan prosecutor’s office because of doubts about her credibility.
In June, prosecutors in the French city of Lille asked to drop charges filed against Mr. Strauss-Kahn in connection with a ring that recruited prostitutes for sex parties in both France and the United States. Mr. Strauss-Kahn had not denied attending but said he was unaware the young women at these parties were prostitutes.
