By: John Gray

It is imperative that the defence destroy the credibility of Maria Messina, the company’s former CFO.  The defence spent days grilling her about the fact she mislead KPMG investigators involved in the due diligence of the company; lied to her former workmates at Deloitte and Touche when they audited the company’s books and even told investigators different stories about when and how she first learned about the alleged fraud at Livent.

The defence rejects the notion that Messina’s most explosive revelations are backed up by company documents. Messina, is a biased and unreliable witness, Greenspan argues. “She came to this court as an advocate, not as a witness. This is not a case of documents independently corraborating Messina’s evidence. it is indisuputable that Messina has used selected documents as stepping stones to tread upon to support a seemingly plausible chronology,” the defence says.