MONTREAL — A former advertising executive said Wednesday there was no problem with entertaining her boss's main federal sponsorship benefactor in a luxury suite at Ottawa's Corel Centre.

Wendy Cumming told the sponsorship inquiry the outings with former sponsorship manager Chuck Guite were for "relationship building'' and had no link to federal contracts that netted her former firm more than $14 million.

The inquiry has heard the firm, Gosselin Communications Strategiques, billed taxpayers $183,000 in 1997 and 1998 for the cost of the suite where Guite and cabinet ministers were wined and dined.

Cumming admitted she spent time there with public officials, earning a stern rebuke from presiding judge John Gomery.

"There are special rules dealing with public servants ... You're not supposed to bribe a public servant,'' the judge told Cumming.

"A frequent visitor to the loge (box) is Mr. Guite, a public servant, as well as members of his family and they're all coming to the (box), using free tickets, food and drink is served to them.''

But Cumming, a Gosselin vice-president from 1997 to 2000, insisted she never discussed sponsorship contracts with the powerful bureaucrat even though her firm's government business was declining in the late 1990s.

"There wasn't an expectation of more business based on those visits to the suite,'' she said. "It was relationship building.''

Cumming's testimony was to be followed later on Wednesday by key questioning of Jean Brault, whose Groupaction ad firm is at the centre of the scandal and who faces related fraud charges.

His testimony, expected to last until at least Monday, is covered by a publication ban.

The judge has also slapped a ban on upcoming testimony by Guite and ad executive Paul Coffin, both of whom also face charges in the scandal.

Gomery has said he could lift the bans at the conclusion of each man's testimony.

Details of Brault's sponsorship business have been damaging to the federal Liberals.

Groupaction once transferred sponsorship cash to a publishing company, Groupe Polygone. Polygone then doled out money to graphic artist Jacques Corriveau, a confidant of former prime minister Jean Chretien.

The inquiry has also heard Groupaction won a $5.6-million sponsorship deal after a personal pitch to former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.

The firm had previously performed work on the 1997 Liberal election campaign.

Brault's fraud charges are related in part to his firm's $1.6 million bill to taxpayers for two nearly identical reports and a third that has since vanished.

The inquiry won't deal with the contracts because they form part of the Crown's case against him.

Gomery is probing all aspects of the $250-million sponsorship program, including allegations sponsorship cash was funnelled into the Liberal party's cash-strapped Quebec wing.

Former Gosselin Communications president Gilles-Andre Gosselin has told the inquiry Brault once strong-armed him into donating $10,000 to the Liberals.