Former theatre kingpin Garth Drabinsky loses law licence

Ontario's law society has revoked disgraced theatre impresario Garth Drabinsky's licence to practise law.

He and business partner Myron Gottlieb served several years in prison for a fraud that ultimately resulted in the demise of now-defunct Livent Inc. the company behind such Toronto theatre hits as Phantom of the Operaand Ragtime.

The two menwere convicted in 2009 in connection with a book-cooking scheme that eventually led to the company's bankruptcy.

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The demise of Livent, apublicly traded company, ultimately cost investors an estimated $500 million.

Drabinsky was granted full parole earlier this year.

Drabinsky, who was called to the bar in 1975, admitted to the Law Society of Upper Canada that his conduct was unbecoming of a licensee.

He had already agreed not to practise law since his fraud convictions, but argued that his self-imposed suspension and restrictions on his practice should suffice as punishment.

Drabinsky told the law society that his law licence was one of the few assets he had left that he could use to "climb out of the abyss" of the past 15 years, referring to when the company went bankrupt.

But the law society ordered that his serious criminal offences mandated the penalty of revocation.