Former Marsh Execs’ Convictions Overturned

Business Insurance reports that New York County Supreme Court Judge James A. Yates overturned the convictions of former Marsh Managing Directors William Gilman and Edward J. McNenney, saying contradictory evidence disclosed in a later trial “undermines the court’s confidence in the verdict.”  

In January, attorneys for Gilman and McNenney filed what is called a 440 motion that asked Yates to vacate the convictions due to prosecutorial misconduct, according to the news report. The motion was based on “multiple forms of exculpatory evidence” that prosecutors failed to produce during the trial of Gilman and McNenney, but did disclose in a later trial against three other Marsh executives, all of whom were acquitted, documents say. 

In his ruling, Yates said some of the nondisclosed material “would have been invaluable to the defense effort” and also noted that the guilty verdict in 2008 rested firmly on the testimony of several key cooperators “and yet each one of them, after testifying with very favorable cooperation agreements, has, at times before, during or shortly after the trial, given sworn testimony discrediting, even contradicting their trial testimony.”   

Gilman, McNenney, and a group of other former Marsh executives were indicted in 2005 on various counts of bid rigging and fraud by then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and former State Insurance Superintendent Howard Mills (see NY Judge Finds Former Marsh Execs Guilty of Bid Rigging). The officials accused the executives of colluding with employees at various insurers to rig the market for excess casualty insurance between November 1998 and September 2004.   

The former executives and others involved in the alleged scheme would predetermine which carriers won business, set “targets” for the predetermined winner to submit as a bid, and obtain “losing bids” from employees at the accomplice companies, the indictment charged.