Former merchant banker Lord Patrick Spens was...

Former merchant banker Lord Patrick Spens was freed on $920,000 bail raised by two friends after appearing in court to hear charges related to the Guinness financial scandal. Spens, 45, a former managing director of merchant bankers Henry Ansbacher & Co., was arrested and charged Thursday for his alleged role in one of Britain’s largest financial scandals. He was ordered to appear in court again April 12 along with four others charged so far in the affair, surrender his passport to police and not to contact employees from the Ansbacher group. Two business friends--Alan Lewis, the chairman of a textiles company, and Charles Longbottom, former chairman of an Ansbacher subsidiary--paid Spens’ bail.