GUINNESS CHALLENGES 5.2 MLN STG PAYMENT TO LAWYER

  Guinness Plc &lt;GUIN.L> , the
  brewing group, has challenged a 5.2 mln stg payment to a U.S.
  Lawyer who says he organised its controversial takeover of
  Scotch whisky maker &lt;The Distillers Co Plc>.
      But attorneys for lawyer Thomas Ward, a member of the
  Guinness board, told a court yesterday in the Channel Island of
  Jersey that Ward saw the payment as his reward for services in
  last year's 2.7 billion stg takeover.
      Britain's Department of Trade and Industry is investigating
  the takeover.
      Guinness says its former chairman Ernest Saunders and Ward
  "breached their fiduciary duty" in authorising the payment to
  Ward, via a Jersey-based company, Marketing and Acquisitions
  Consultants and has gone to the Jersey court to recover it.
      MAC said in defence documents that Ward was the main
  negotiator in the battle for Distillers against rival bidder
  Argyll &lt;AYLL.L> Group Plc.
      "The bid would not have been successful but for the ...
  Services of Mr Ward," MAC attorneys said in the documents
  submitted in court. "The payment was, in all the circumstances,
  reasonable, proper and fully earned."
  

