The former general counsel of US company Tyco, Mark Belnick, has become the first senior in-house lawyer to be prosecuted in the wave of corporate scandals that have hit the US.

Belnick was charged on 12 September, along with Tyco’s former chief executive officer Dennis Kozlowski and former chief financial officer Mark Swartz, as the Manhattan district attorney’s office filed criminal charges related to alleged corporate malfeasance.