Lawyer Says He Provided Documents Used for Article

The law firm representing Bankers Trust New York Corp. said it was the source of the documents provided to BusinessWeek magazine for a story that was withdrawn under court order.

In testimony in U.S. District Court here Wednesday, Steven Holley, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and the lawyer who provided the papers to the magazine, said he was unaware they had been sealed by court order.

The documents contain information pertaining to a lawsuit Procter & Gamble Co. filed over its $102-million loss on derivative securities it bought from Bankers Trust.

Holley said he received the documents from another Sullivan & Cromwell partner handling the case and passed them on to BusinessWeek legal affairs editor Linda Himelstein at her request. He said he thought the package was a courtesy copy available to others.

“He handed me a document--he said he had an extra copy--and I did not tell him what I wanted to do with it,” Holley said in court, referring to his colleague.

McGraw-Hill Cos., owner of BusinessWeek, is fighting to remove the preliminary injunction that has prevented the magazine from publishing an investigative article about the Procter & Gamble and Bankers Trust litigation.