Collins Stewart, which is suing the Financial Times newspaper for repeating the allegations in the FSA report, warned Dresdner that any employees who were repeating the highly damaging claims could be sued.Collins Stewart confirmed it had received reports of brokers bad mouthing it to clients. Collins Stewart, the broker embroiled in a row with former employee James Middleweek, has slapped down rival investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein following rumours that employees of the German firm had been repeating potentially slanderous allegations about the company in a bid to steal its clients. The company, which sold Wembley conference centre last year, now generates approximately 90 per cent of its operating profit from slot machines.. There could also be a punitive damages lawsuit from the Narragansett, who are still awaiting a verdict on their casino application.In January, the Rhode Island Lottery Commission approved a further 1,300 video lottery terminals at Lincoln Park. The Wembley chairman, Claes Hultman, will assume Mr Potter’s role.Mr Hultman said yesterday: “No payment was approved and no payment was ever made. These allegations will be vigorously defended”.If Lincoln Park and the two directors are found guilty on all 22 counts, fines could top $16.5m and the state lottery commission could revoke the company’s licence to operate video lottery terminals. In further correspondence, Mr Bucci indicated that a named lawyer had said that any payment to Daniel McKinnon of McKinnon and Harwood should be referred to as a “bonus” and not a “retainer”.Shares in Wembley plunged more than 21 per cent to close down 142.5p at 520p after the announcement of the indictments.Mr Potter and Mr Bucci are standing down from their respective executive duties to concentrate on defending the charges.

Another facsimile indicates that a delay in payment of an “incentive” to McKinnon and Harwood “validates the feeling” that Wembley is “unwilling to participate in common business practices”. The indictments go on to allege that the payments were aimed to help Lincoln Park gain authorisation for installation of coin-operated slot machines at its Rhode Island dog track, Lincoln Park, to win approval for increasing the number of video lottery machines at Lincoln Park and to prevent legislation facilitating the development of a casino in Rhode Island run by the Narragansett American Indian tribe.The indictments include details of a facsimile from Mr Bucci to Mr Potter in August 2000 which states that due to the need to “advance slots, add machines and silence the Indians”, a “reward” should be given to Lincoln Park supporters who “took the brunt of media assaults”. McKinnon & Harwood is run by the former Rhode Island House speaker John Harwood. Indictments were also issued against Wembley’s US subsidiary Lincoln Park and its chief executive Dan Bucci.
The indictments allege that planned payments of up to $4.5m (£2.8m) to the law firm McKinnon & Harwood constituted a conspiracy to improperly influence the actions of public officials. Nigel Potter, the chief executive of the track-based gaming group Wembley, has been indicted on bribery charges by a Federal Grand Jury in the US state of Rhode Island. The national newspaper titles continue to lose money, but the underlying story was that the papers had performed well relative to competitors over the past six months.Ivan Fallon, chief executive of Independent News & Media (UK), described the titles as “stronger editorially than they have been in a long time”, with improved market share in both advertising and circulation.A ruling is expected shortly from the Department of Trade and Industry on whether to allow the proposed sale of the company’s London regional newspaper titles to Gannett of the US.The board is recommending an interim dividend of 2.75 euro cents, up 5.4 per cent on last year.. INM’s geographic diversity has proved a boon, with the strong growth from operations in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa offsetting more sluggish growth elsewhere.Profits after tax for the half year rose from €44m to €47.7m (£33.5m), helped by reduced interest and tax charges.In the UK, the advertising market remained “tough”, with profits hit particularly hard in the magazines division, which is reliant on the London recruitment market.

Independent News & Media, owner of The Independent and The Independent on Sunday, yesterday reported good progress in all its operations and expressed confidence that economic recovery would allow the group to deliver a meaningful increase in earnings this year. Its share price, which peaked at more than 370p in late 2000, fell to barely 100p at the beginning of the year, before plummeting in the wake of its profit warning Its shares stood at 3p yesterday.. Mr Shakespeare said: “Sales incentive schemes are a recognised mechanism for encouraging and rewarding exceptional performance in a sales environment.”The Inter-Alliance board felt that to scrap the trip would have had a “detrimental effect” on the group and its advisers, with the cost of cancellation being nearly as much as going ahead, Mr Shakespeare added.Inter-Alliance floated on the Alternative Investment Market in 1998. After Inter-Alliance’s takeover of another firm, HST Financial, in August last year, its advisers were told they and their spouses would qualify for the trip if they met a pro-rata target of about £42,000 by the end of the year.Carey Shakespeare, Inter-Alliance marketing director and a member of the company’s board, confirmed the “sales conference” for advisers and their managers took place. Attendance on the holiday to the Indian Ocean resort was offered to any advisers, and their spouses, who could meet a target of £100,000 in commission earnings throughout 2002. Re-establishing credibility with investors could take a long time.”Inter-Alliance, whose head office is in Swindon, runs a network of some 1,200 independent financial advisers, from 17 offices throughout the UK.

One would have thought for a company that is burning cash at a rapid rate, taking away several hundred people to Mauritius is not a sensible thing to do with its dwindling reserves.”David Pannell, director of research at Durlacher Securities, said: “The trip sums up what went wrong at Inter-Alliance. Travel experts familiar with organising incentive trips of this nature said a basic trip to Mauritius, involving travel and half-board, would generally cost about £2,000 per head, excluding any additional meals or evening entertainment.Justin Bates, a financial analyst at Numis Securities, said yesterday: “This sends completely the wrong message to shareholders. It subsequently issued a profits warning in June and announced a further capital-raising exercise in July, this time for £15m.Staff at the Sugar Beach Hotel, which covers 20 acres of landscaped tropical gardens and boasts five restaurants and three bars, said that about 230 double rooms were booked for the Inter-Alliance party. In May, the company’s annual accounts showed it was losing more than £2m a month in the second half of last year. Inter-Alliance, one of the UK’s largest independent firms of financial advisers, took hundreds of its staff and their spouses on a week-long paid trip to Mauritius at a cost of up to £800,000 in April this year, just weeks before issuing a profits warning to the Stock Exchange.
The “conference”, at the luxury Sugar Beach Hotel, was organised for up to 200 of the group’s top-performing advisers, managers and three unnamed board members, plus an equal number of their husbands and wives.Only the previous month Inter-Alliance was forced to raise more than £12m from its shareholders. He also said yesterday’s 14 per cent rise in share price from 38p to 43.5p made the “tenuous but believable” bid rumours, doing the rounds last month, less likely..