28 NOVEMBER 1987, Page 27

Guinness's select bar

THE City says that Felt Collars PLC will soon extend its activities in the Guinness affair — Felt Collars being the local euphemism for the Fraud Squad. I should not care to receive an unsolicited approach. I am told that the fees being offered to prosecuting counsel are on a scale not hitherto seen in such cases, which have usually been conducted by generalists from the criminal bar. For these charges, which are bound to lead to complex argument, commercial law specialists are being brought in from the Chancery bar. They are expensive. It seems that Alan Green, the new Director of Public Pro- secutions, knows how to make the Govern- ment cough up — and that the Govern- ment thinks it worth the effort.