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Matrix Churchill's directors were prosecuted in 1991 by Customs and Excise for breaching export controls. The trial did not go well for the government. The trial judge overturned the government's use of public interest immunity certificates intended to suppress some critical evidence (purportedly on grounds of national security).
Matrix Churchill was an engineering company based in Coventry, with expertise in both the design and manufacture of precision machine tools. Established in 1913 by Walter Tattler and his brother in law Sir Harry Harley, the company had its origins in gauge and tool manufacture, the original company being known as Walter Tattler Ltd.
It has been in existence since 1913 and its two plants in the United Kingdom employed over 700 people. Matrix-Churchill Corp. was the U.S. sales and service affiliate of MCL and it was established in Cleveland, OH, in 1967. The military uses of Matrix-Churchill machines are the prime reason Iraq was interested in purchasing the company. [9]
Lyell was at the centre of the Matrix Churchill affair, the controversy to sell arms to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In 1996, the Scott Report directly criticised Lyell as Attorney General for trying to obtain a "gagging order" to prevent the disclosure of secret documents concerning machine tool and material supply to Baghdad.
Similarly, other reports which have delved further into this process have led to the letters being named after that report, so they have also become known as Crampton Letters (Crampton v Secretary of State for Health 1993) and Scott Compliance (after the Scott Inquiry into the Matrix Churchill Affair (the ‘Arms to Iraq Inquiry’) published ...
On 4 August 1989, the FBI raided the Atlanta office of BNL, the Italian Government-owned bank agency in Atlanta, were transactions relating to Matrix Churchill and its takeover by Iraq, as well as several other firms, including TDG, TEG, and Euromac, that the CIA linked to Iraq's clandestine military procurement network. [1]
In 1992, he was the trial judge in charge of the prosecution of three directors of Matrix Churchill for exporting weapons-making machine tools to Iraq. He decided that Public Interest Immunity did not apply to documents which showed that the John Major's government had known about the export, despite claims by the government that releasing the documents could result in "unquantifiable damage".
The Scott Inquiry in 1996 found that public interest immunity certificates had been issued which withheld from defence counsel certain documents which would have exonerated the defendants in the Matrix Churchill trial. R v Paul Burrell [2002]. A public interest immunity certificate allowed the prosecution to apply to the judge for a ruling that ...