Bond jailed for three year term

FAILED Australian businessman Alan Bond was jailed for three years yesterday for fraud involving the French impressionist painting, La Promenade.

In sentencing Bond, the Australian judge said the jail term was not the maximum 14 years. He is to appeal the conviction.

Bond, whose personal fortune was estimated at Aus350 million (£171 million) in the late 1980s, was found guilty last Friday on four fraud charges surrounding the sale of Eduard Manet's La Promenade.

The jury found that Bond had improperly used his position as director of his former corporate flagship, Bond Corporation Holdings Ltd, to allow his private company to buy La homemade for about Aus$10 million less than its market value in 1988.

His private company, Dallhold Investments Pty Ltd, bought the painting for Aus$2.46 million and sold it a year later at auction in New York for Aus 17 million.

The judge dismissed a claim by defence lawyers that a custodial sentence would kill Bond because of his failing health but did not impose the maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

Bond faces further charges associated with the collapse of his corporate empire in the early 1990s.