Guinness trial financier appeals over conviction
The conviction of Jack Lyons, one of the businessmen who stood trial over the Guinness share-fixing affair, has been referred to the Court of Appeal in the UK
Lyons, 84, who was stripped of his knighthood after the original verdict on him 10 years ago, appealed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission last October for a review of his conviction.
The commission has announced that it has referred his conviction to the Court of Appeal.
The Guinness trial followed one of the biggest City scandals of the 1980s.
Financier Lyons, property company boss Gerald Ronson and stockbroker Anthony Parnes were found guilty in 1990 of colluding in an unlawful share scheme set up to support the Guinness takeover of the Distillers company.
They were charged with conspiracy, false accounting, theft and conspiracy to contravene the Prevention of Fraud Act and the Companies Act. All three maintained that the share operations were common practice and could not be classified as a crime. They denied all charges at their trial.
Former Guinness chairman Ernest Saunders was charged with false accounting, theft and destruction of documents for his role in the operation which successfully led to the takeover in 1986. He was convicted and jailed for five years but was released after 10 months on grounds of dementia.
Saunders later resumed his business interests, working for a while as consultant to Carphone Warehouse, then the Transatlantic Richbell group.
Ronson was jailed for 12 months and fined £5m. Parnes was jailed for 30 months while Lyons was spared a prison sentence because of ill health but was fined £3m with costs.
