Greenspans initiate Radler redux at Livent trial

For those of us who sat through the trial of Conrad Black, yesterday afternoon at the Livent fraud trial was a trip down memory lane. Eddie Greenspan (acting for Garth Drabinsky) took over the cross-examination of former Livent contractor Peter Kofman from his brother Brian (acting for the co-accused, Myron Gottlieb). In what was clearly a warm-up for the main event, the cross-examination of former Livent senior VP finance Gordon Eckstein (playing, for the purposes of this trial, the role of David Radler), Eddie and Brian led Kofman through a series of questions meant to portray Eckstein—in the words of one press gallery wag—“in horns and a tail.”

Having had Brian establish that Eckstein was “abusive,” “arrogant,” “bullheaded,” even racist, Eddie confronted Kofman with his own testimony from the day before that “Eckstein was the kind of guy who could have done a lot of this stuff without telling Garth,” that he “sort of dreamt all this up.” Seeming to have had enough of the entire fiasco, Kofman resignedly agreed and now it will be up to Eddie to bang those nails further into Eckstein’s coffin when he confronts the man himself. Like I say, Radler redux.

• Lawyers for Livent founders focus blame on former executive [Financial Post]

• Witness complained to Gottlieb, court told [Globe and Mail]

• Livent trial Blog [Canadian Business]