The Court of Appeal has been told the 11-year "march to justice" by the four men convicted in the 1990 Guinness trial goes on.
Counsel for former Guinness chief executive Mr Ernest Saunders says the appeal process has not been stopped in its tracks by a Law Lords judgment last week blocking their defence under the Human Rights Act.
Michael Beloff QC said the Lords ruling that the act did not apply retrospectively to appeals "does not kill stone dead each and every argument".
Opening a fresh appeal by the "Guinness Four", he urged the appeal judges to rule that, regardless of the Human Rights Act, their fraud convictions were unsafe because they simply did not get a fair trial in the light of developments since 1990.
Mr Beloff said it was still open to the court to rule that, under general principles of fairness, the four had been robbed of their right to silence by having to provide information under compulsion to Department of Trade and Industry inspectors that was then used as primary evidence against them.
He said the breach of the defendants' right not to be compelled to incriminate themselves was just one of the points being raised in the fresh appeal, referred to the court by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
During the three-week hearing, the court will also hear new evidence relating to a defence claim that police knew at the time of the six-month trial of a plot to bribe the foreman of the jury but failed to tell the judge or barristers.
The juror and two men alleged to have knowledge of a plot to corrupt him, plus two junior and two senior police officers, are expected to be questioned next week.
The Guinness Four - Saunders, Gerald Ronson, Jack Lyons and Anthony Parnes - also rely on the non-disclosure of evidence concerning accepted "market practice" at the time of the affair.
They are challenging convictions over an allegedly illegal scheme to boost the value of Guinness shares in the run-up to its £2.6 billion takeover of Distillers in 1986.
PA