Guinness led to a scandal and criminal trial concerning the artificial inflation of the Guinness share price during the takeover bid engineered by the chairman, Ernest Saunders. A subsequent £5.2 million success fee paid to an American lawyer and Guinness director, Tom Ward, was the subject of the case "Guinness plc v Saunders", in which the House of Lords declared that the payment had been invalid. In the 1980s, as the IRA's bombing campaign spread to London and the rest of Britain, Guinness considered scrapping the harp as its logo. The company merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo.
Guinness Black Lager being advertised in North America. It is a 4.5% a.b.v. strength brew and gets its black colour from the roasted barley added into it. Guinness has made several attempts to vary its brand in the past, some of which were not successful. These include Guinness Breo and Guinness Light. Guinness Black Lager Guinness Black Lager is a black lager being tried in Northern Ireland and the United States by Diageo, and in Malaysia by Guinness Anchor Berhad, under its Guinness brand name. Test marketing began in March 2010. The new product is aimed at young men who prefer chilled, bottled