As a result of this the company was forced into liquidation in September 1927. A company board member, Victor Coen, was convinced that the company had been treated wrongly and insisted in bringing it before the courts. In May 1929, he convinced the rest of the board to issue a writ against the syndicate and Oppenheimer, alleging fraudulent conspiracy, and began instructing Hastings. Hastings worried that the case would become unmanageable, with the syndicate relying on over 4,000 documents for their defence, but luckily found a certificate showing that the company profits, rather than the five percent Oppenheimer had reported, were in fact seventeen percent. The trial began before Mr Justice McCardie on 4 March 1930, with Hastings for the company, and Stuart Bevan and Norman Birkett for the syndicate. The first witness called was Coen himself, who Hastings later described as "the best witness without exception that I have ever seen in the witness-box". He was interviewed over seven days by Hastings, then Bevan and then Birkett. Eight days into the trial the matter of the certificate came up, and Oppenheimer was unable to provide an explanation. As a result, the jury found against the syndicate - they were ordered to pay back all of the company's costs, and all of its losses. Royal Mail Case In 1931, Hastings represented John Morland in the Royal Mail Case. The director of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, Lord Kylsant, had falsified a trading prospectus with the aid of the company accountant, John Morland, to make it look as if the company was profitable and to entice potential investors. At the same time, he had been falsifying accounting records by drawing money from the reserves and having it appear on the records as profit. Following an independent audit instigated by the Treasury, Kylsant and John Morland, the company auditor, were arrested and charged with falsifying both the trading prospectus and the company records and accounts. The trial began at the Old Bailey on 20 July 1931 before Mr Justice Wright, with Sir William Jowitt, D. N. Pritt and Eustace Fulton for the prosecution, Sir John Simon, J. E. Singleton and Wilfred Lewis for Lord Kylsant, and Hastings, Stuart Bevan, James Tucker and C. J. Conway for John Morland. Both defendants pleaded not guilty. The main defence on the use of secret reserve accounting came with the help of Lord Plender. Plender