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- <text id=90TT2381>
- <title>
- Sep. 10, 1990: Business Notes:Crime
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Sep. 10, 1990 Playing Cat And Mouse
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 63
- Business Notes
- CRIME
- No Longer a Stout Fellow
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> What the press had dubbed the City of London's "trial of the
- century" ended last week in the conviction of four of Britain's
- most prominent businessmen. Former Guinness PLC chairman Ernest
- Saunders was sentenced to five years in prison for
- masterminding an illegal operation to boost the stock price of
- the famed $11.6 billion brewing and distilling group and thus
- helping the company win its successful $5.23 billion takeover
- battle for Distillers, the Scottish liquor maker. Investigators
- first became aware of the Guinness scheme, described as one
- of the biggest financial scandals in British history, when U.S.
- inside-trader Ivan Boesky disclosed some of the details.
- </p>
- <p> For their supporting roles in the affair, Gerald Ronson, the
- chairman of Heron International, a multinational real estate
- and service-station empire, was sentenced to a year in jail and
- a $9.7 million fine, while stockbroker Anthony Parnes drew a
- 2 1/2-year term. A fourth defendant, financier Sir Jack Lyons,
- will be sentenced later this month. Unlike Boesky, Saunders
- will no longer have millions when he emerges from prison:
- before sentencing, he was forced to apply for the British
- equivalent of welfare to survive.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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