NU Online News Service, July 6, 1:15 p.m. EDT
New York Supreme Court Judge James A. Yates has thrown out the convictions of two former executives of Marsh after their 2008 conviction on felony monopoly charges for accepting contingent commission kickbacks.
The executives–William Gilman, a former executive marketing director and managing director at Marsh, and Edward McNenney, the brokerage's former Global Placement Excess Casualty director and managing director–were convicted after an 11-month nonjury trial before Judge Yates. No fines were imposed.
The judgment was vacated last Friday, according to a court officer.
The two executives were sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years probation, but their sentences were stayed pending appeals.
The cases grew out of an investigation by the New York Attorney General's Office into bid-rigging and steering among some major insurance brokers, including Marsh.
Robert J. Cleary, an attroney with the law firm Proskauer Rose in New York City, representing Mr. Gilman, said Judge Yates threw out the convictions after agreeing with the defense that prosecutors failed to disclose certain information that would have had an impact on the outcome of the case.
A call to the New York Attorney General's Office was not immediately returned.
According to press reports, it appears that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has moved away from the aggressive prosecution of insurance brokers that was a focal point of former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who pursued the bid-rigging scandal that erupted from Marsh's business practices at one of its specialty businesses back in 2004.
In a November 2009 case, Mr. Cuomo's office asked that charges be dropped against two other former Marsh executives, citing the expense of pursing the prosecution after three other executives were acquitted the month before.
This story was updated on July 7 at 4:30 p.m EDT
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