AS WE SEE IT, there's always something wrong when those responsible change the rules in the middle of the game.

And that, we submit, is precisely what has happened in the United States in the wake of some high-profile financial collapses, notably those of Enron and WorldCom.

Back in March, when Conrad Black and his three co-accused went on trial, their lawyers assured the jurors that the case was not another Enron.

It wasn't. Yet in the wake of their convictions, it has become obvious that the collapse of the Houston, Texas energy firm was indeed inextricably linked to Lord Black's downfall.

The convictions were but the latest in a series of triumphs by prosecutors in an Enroninspired crackdown on corporate crime that began five years ago.

If not for the widespread outrage generated by the Enron debacle, which left thousands jobless and wiped out billions of dollars in market value and employee pension plans, Lord Black likely would not have been prosecuted, much less convicted.

"On an order of magnitude, this case doesn't compare to Enron or WorldCom," Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor who represents companies and individuals accused of white-collar crimes, told the Associated Press. "But ... it's another example of federal prosecutors aggressively pursuing a once-powerful CEO and convincing jurors that his conduct amounted to an intentional fraud. ... Five years ago, that was almost unthinkable."

Amid anger and frustration at scandals from the "dot-com era," the Bush administration took two major steps in July 2002 in a bid to minimize corporate misdeeds. It created a corporate fraud task force to root out and prosecute white-collar criminals, and with help from Congress set stringent new standards for all U.S. public company boards, management and public accounting firms, in the form of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

After five years of catching executives in those nets, the rate of corporate convictions has slowed, due in part to the higher levels of accountability and scrutiny. But U.S. prosecutors are continuing to go after such cases aggressively when evidence surfaces.

We won't know until December how far the crusade against Lord Black will go in terms of jail time. Even the prosecution team has been sending out mixed messages, initially suggesting it will seek between 15 and 20 years and later indicating a desire to make an example of him by advocating a maximum term of 30 years - in effect a life term.

At a time when shareholder lawsuits were proliferating, the prosecutors got a big assist in the Hollinger case when a special committee of its board responded to angry stockholders by compiling a 500-page report in 2004 detailing how Lord Black and his associates had secretly charged the company millions of dollars in fees of questionable legality.

At the end of the day, the jury found guilt proven in only a handful of the fees collected in return for promising not to compete with purchasers of a few community newspapers, and by far Lord Black's most serious conviction was for attempting to obstruct justice by removing 13 cartons full of documents from the Toronto offices of Hollinger Inc. in defiance of an Ontario judge's court order.

We suspect that there would have been a similar outcome had the trial taken place in Toronto, with convictions on at least a couple of fraud counts in addition to the attempt to obstruct justice.

However, the Toronto trial would have had an entirely different sequel when it came to punishment.

As matters stand, Lord Black now faces a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines, while Jack Boultbee, Peter Atkinson and Mark Kipnis could spend up to 15 years in prison with fines of $750,000.

But in Canada the maximum penalty for both fraud and obstructing justice is 10 years, and that penalty is supposed to be reserved for the worst crime and worst offender.

In the case of multiple fraud convictions, Canada's courts also invoke sentencing principles that avoid meting out consecutive sentences for related offences. For someone in Lord Black's position, as a first offender, he would normally face a sentence of well under 10 years, with eligibility for full parole after one-sixth of the time had been served.

But in the U.S., even a 10-year sentence involves worse consequences for the whitecollar criminal than we reserve for a killer convicted of manslaughter and given the maximum penalty of "life."

Here, a life sentence carries with it eligibility for seek parole after seven years. But in the U.S. federal justice system, a 10-year sentence includes a requirement that even with good behaviour, an offender must spent 85 per cent of the term (8 1/2 years) behind bars.

In the circumstances, it will be interesting to witness the arguments advanced when the sentencing hearing gets under way on November 30.

In both Canada and the U.S., the major objective in any sentencing is protection of the public, and in any given case the court will examine the need for "specific" and "general" deterrence. (Is the offender likely to re-offend, or is there a need for the court to send out a message that will deter others?)

Lord Black having had no prior convictions, the need for specific deterrence would be minimal.

As for general deterrence, the novelty of the prosecution could be seen as indicating there's relatively little likelihood that other corporate executives will engage in similar activity, and there's precious little evidence of widespread payments being made to vendors who promise not to compete with the purchasers.

As for possible $million-plus fines, they would seemingly accomplish little other than to make it less likely that plaintiffs in the multiple civil actions against Lord Black and his co-accused would ever see the damages they might be awarded.