The owner of Barnsley Football Club has denied conspiring to make misleading statements about an IT firm involved in a major NHS project.
Club owner and former iSoft Group chairman Patrick Cryne, 58, and three other former directors of the IT firm pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to make misleading statements to the stock market about the company.
All four were granted bail and ordered to appear at Southwark Crown Court in central London again on September 16.
The Financial Services Authority alleges the men misled the stock market and external auditors about the firm’s financial position.
Mr Cryne, of Glossop, Derbyshire, is accused of conspiring with the three others to say a contract with the Irish Hospital Information Systems had been signed and funded before April 30 2005.
Cryne; former chief executive Timothy Whiston, 42, of Lymm, Cheshire; and former directors Stephen Graham, 46, from Knutsford, Cheshire and John Whelan, 43, of Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, all denied the charge.
iSoft, which was involved in the NHS software programme known as the National Programme for IT, has since been sold to Australian software firm IBA Health, which renamed itself iSoft after the takeover in October 2007.
The original founder of iSoft was well known Birmingham businessman Roger Dickens, who died in early 2006 aged only 58 following a hugely distinguished career in the city.
Mr Dickens established iSoft in 1994 while part of KPMG along with Mr Cryne and Mr Graham.
A management buy-out followed in May 1999 and in July 2000 iSoft was floated, raising £16 million.
The founders became millionaires on and the company went on to become one of the hottest stocks of the technology boom which took Britain by storm in the early years of the last decade.
The charges came after the Financial Services Authority was called in when the company’s own investigations found evidence of irregularities during the financial years ending April 2004 and 2005.
The revelation forced iSoft, which was worth £1 billion at its stockmarket peak, to restate its accounts by £174 million and led to the resignation of several key executives.
