A federal judge has thrown out charges of illegal tax planning against 13 former executives of KPMG in the US, but three others still face trial. The executives had been accused of running a tax shelter scheme that defrauded the US government of more than $2bn (£980m). But Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled the defendants' constitutional rights to counsel and a fair trial had been violated because prosecutors had threatened to indict KPMG if it refused to cut off the defendants'legal fees.
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