Conrad Black

The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour, PC, OC, KCSG
Born	(1944-08-25) August 25, 1944 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Occupation(s)	former newspaper magnate, financier, historian, biographer

Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, PC, OC, KCSG (born 25 August, 1944, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a former financier and newspaper magnate, and a biographer.

Black is Canadian-born, but publicly renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001 in order to accept his appointment as a life peer in the British House of Lords, an offer blocked by then Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien. He is married to Barbara Amiel, a well-known, British-born journalist.

Black was a defendant along with three others in United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, with Lord Black facing 13 counts related to criminal fraud. On 13 July, 2007, the 12-member jury reached a guilty verdict on four charges, including mail fraud and obstruction of justice, but acquitted him of the other nine charges, including wire fraud and racketeering, after 12 days of deliberation. He faces a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison and a million-dollar fine when he is sentenced, scheduled for 10 December, 2007, in Chicago. His Canadian lawyer, Edward Greenspan, has stated that an appeal of Black's convictions will be filed in due course.

Personal relationships and family

Conrad Black was born in Montreal to a wealthy family originally from Winnipeg. His father, George Montegu Black, Jr., was the president of Canadian Breweries, an international brewing conglomerate which earlier had absorbed Winnipeg Breweries, which was founded by George Black Sr. Conrad Black's mother was the former Jean Elizabeth Riley, a daughter of Conrad Stephenson Riley (whose father founded the Great-West Life Assurance Company), and a great-granddaughter of an early co-owner of the Daily Telegraph.

Black's first marriage was to Joanna (born Shirley) Hishon of Montreal, who worked as a secretary in his brother Montegu's brokerage office. The couple had two sons, Jonathan-David Conrad and James Patrick Leonard Black, and a daughter, Alana Whitney Elizabeth Black. The couple separated in 1991. The Black divorce was finalized in 1992; the same year Black married Watford-born journalist Barbara Amiel. It was said that marriage to Amiel affirmed Black's position in the British glamour set. Black flattered Amiel, describing her variously as "beautiful, brilliant, ideologically a robust spirit" and "chic, humorous and preternaturally sexy." Courtroom evidence revealed that the couple exchanged over 11,000 emails.

Early life and career

Black, described as "a bookish, clumsy youth," was first educated at Upper Canada College (UCC), during which time, at age 8, he purchased shares in General Motors. Six years later, according to Tom Bower's biography Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge, he was expelled from UCC for selling stolen exam papers. He then attended Trinity College School where he lasted less than a year, being expelled for insubordinate behavior. Black eventually graduated from a small, now defunct private school in Toronto called Thornton Hall, continuing on to post-secondary education at Carleton University (History, 1965). For a time, he attended Toronto's Osgoode Hall Law School of York University; however, he dropped out during his first year of study. He eventually completed his law degree at Université Laval (Law, 1970), later completing a Master of Arts degree in history at McGill University in 1973. Black's thesis, later published as a biography, was on Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis. Biographer George Toombs said of Black's motivations: "he was born into a very large family of athletic, handsome people. He wasn't particularly athletic or handsome like they were, so he developed a different skill - wordplay, which he practised a lot with his father."

Black became involved in a number of businesses, mainly publishing newspapers, but briefly in mining. In 1966 Black bought his first newspaper, the Eastern Townships Advertiser in Quebec. Following the foundation, as an investment vehicle, of the Ravelston Corporation by the Black family in 1969, Black, together with friends David Radler and Peter G. White, purchased and operated the Sherbrooke Record, the small English language daily in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In 1971, the three formed Sterling Newspapers Limited, a holding company that would acquire several other small Canadian regional newspapers.

Corporate ownership through holding companies

George Black died in June 1976, leaving Conrad and his older brother, Montegu, a stake in a mining company called Hollinger, and a 22.4% stake in Ravelston Corp., which by then owned 61% voting control of Argus Corporation, an influential holding company in Canada. Early in his business career Conrad Black was taken under the wing of two prominent Canadian businessmen: John Angus "Bud" McDougald and E. P. Taylor, and following McDougald's death in 1978, Black acquired a controlling interest in the shareholdings of Argus.

On July 4 of the same year, Black paid $30-million to take control of Ravelston and voting control of Argus and its headquarters at 10 Toronto Street in Toronto. This controversial arrangement resulted in the widows of Argus Corp.'s McDougald and Eric Phillips (a daughter of Samuel McLaughlin, a founder of General Motors Canada) claiming that he had defrauded them. At the time, Argus owned some of Canada's most prominent blue-chip companies, including Dominion Stores, Massey Ferguson, Hollinger Mines. Black resigned as Chairman of the struggling Massey Ferguson company in 1979, after which Argus divested its shares to the employee union. Hollinger Mines was then turned into a holding company.

In 1981 Norcen Energy, one of his companies, acquired a minority position in Ohio-based Hanna Mining Co. A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stated that Norcen took "an investment position" in Hanna. However, the filing failed to disclose that Norcen's board planned to seek majority control. Black subsequently was charged by the SEC with filing misleading public statements, charges that were later withdrawn by "consent decree" after Black and Norcen agreed not to break securities laws in the future.

Black was ranked 235th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2004, with an estimated wealth of £175m. Despite his success, it was reported in Vanity Fair magazine that Black always carried a vomit bag with him due to the possible onset of frequent anxiety attacks.

Dominion pension dispute

In 1984, Dominion Stores Ltd. withdrew over $56 million from the Dominion workers' pension plan surplus without consulting plan members. The firm said it considered the surplus the rightful property of the employer (Dominion Stores Ltd.). The Dominion Union complained, a public outcry ensued, and the case went to court. The Supreme Court of Ontario eventually ruled against the company on this case, and ordered the company to return the money to the pension fund, claiming that though the most recent language in the plan suggested the employer had ownership of the surplus, the original intention was to keep the surplus in the plan to increase members' benefits. The company appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld the lower court's decision.

Black's allegations of libel

In 1983, Black sued U.S. society magazine Town & Country over an allegedly defamatory article by Canadian journalist and Black biographer Peter C. Newman. However, the case was not tested in a courtroom.

In 1990, the Canadian division of Penguin Books agreed to destroy 6,200 copies of Whose Money Is It Anyway?, after Black started a libel suit over passages about the Dominion pensions dispute.

Becoming a press baron

As Black acquired media outlets, he gradually became the latest in a series of Canadian-born British press lords, including:Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook; Hugh Graham, 1st Baron Atholstan; and Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet.

Black was approached in 1985 by Andrew Knight, then the editor of The Economist, and invited to make an investment in the ailing Telegraph Group. By buying into the Telegraph Group, Black made his entry into the British press. Five years following, he bought the Jerusalem Post, and subsequently fired the majority of its staff. By 1990, his companies ran over 400 newspaper titles in North America, the preponderance of them small community papers.

Hollinger bought a minority stake in the Southam newspaper chain in 1993, the same year Black published his first autobiography, A Life in Progress , and acquired the Chicago Sun Times. Hollinger International shares were listed on New York Stock Exchange in 1996, at which time the company boosted its stake in Southam to a control position. Black then launched the National Post in Toronto in 1998, but sold his interest in 2001. From 1999 to 2000 Hollinger International also unloaded several newspapers in five deals worth a total of US$679-million, a total that included millions of dollars in "non-compete agreements" for Hollinger insiders. Later in the year, Hollinger International announced the sale of thirteen major Canadian newspapers, 126 community newspapers, Internet properties and half of the National Post to CanWest Global Communications Corp. Hollinger International sold the rest of the National Post to CanWest in the summer of 2001. By October, fund-management company Tweedy Browne, which owns 12.7% of Hollinger shares, wrote to complain about Black's compensation and management fees paid to Ravelston. To reduce debt, Hollinger sold its 15% stake in CanWest for $271 million.

Despite Black's deep involvement in the media world, he retained a particular disdain for the press. Black was quoted as saying: "a substantial number of journalists are ignorant, lazy, opinionated and intellectually dishonest. The profession is heavily cluttered with aged hacks, toiling through a miasma of mounting decrepitude and often alcoholism." Upon arriving at court in Chicago in 2007, Black gave the finger to the gathered media covering his trial.

Lord Black fostered close ties to certain influential conservative figures and think tanks; Black became a close friend of Henry Kissinger and his wife, both of whom served on Hollinger's board, and Black himself sat on the board of trustees of the Hudson Institute and Nixon Center. Black also associated with Richard Perle, Joan Collins, and Princess Michael of Kent. Using his various media outlets, Black put forward his views on the Canadian establishment: he denounced the country's welfare system as "an overgenerous reinsurance policy for an underachieving people"; blamed brain drain on Canada's high taxes; attacked trade unions; and derided liberal politicians, once calling an Ontario politician the "Salvador Allende of Canada," trying to "strangle, disembowel, and immolate the vestiges of the incentive-based economy." Black called the Bishop of Calgary a "jumped-up little twerp" and a "prime candidate for exorcism" for backing a strike at Black's Calgary Herald newspaper.

Lifestyle

Black was known for his amassed fortune and the lavish tastes it supported. Having been born into an already wealthy family, Black purchased from his parents' estate assets such as the Georgian house he lives in, on seven acres of land in Toronto's Bridle Path neighbourhood. Black reportedly had additions constructed on the home, including a library with a copper cupola. Black's critics, including former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore, suggested it was Black's wife, Amiel, who pushed him towards a life of opulence, citing extravagant expenditures such as items billed to Hollinger expenses that included $2,463 (£1,272) on handbags, $2,785 in opera tickets, and $140 for Amiel's "jogging attire."

At the time of his fraud trial in 2007, Black was aware of the disdain much of the public held towards him because of his wealth, stating: "Since biblical times, and probably before, the wealthy have been envied and condemned."

Peerage controversy

Black's initial attempt to accept the British peerage, offered by Queen Elizabeth II on the advice of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was thwarted by then Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien, who referred to the 1919 Nickle Resolution, by which the Canadian House of Commons resolved that the Canadian Monarch should not confer titular honours on Canadians.

Black attempted to work around the Canadian Prime Minister by taking dual British and Canadian citizenship, claiming that he would accept the peerage from the Queen as a British citizen rather than as a Canadian citizen. After this proved unsuccessful, with Chrétien still asserting that Blair could not have the Queen give a titular honour to a Canadian, Black initiated a lawsuit against Chrétien, arguing that the Canadian Prime Minister's strict interpretation of the Nickle Resolution, which is not a law, was payback for Black's political opinions and past criticism of Chrétien.

Black lost the lawsuit on the first instance and on appeal, with the Court of Appeal for Ontario stating that the Prime Minister of Canada was within his constitutional rights to advise the Queen on the exercise of her Royal Prerogative. In 2001, Black gave up his Canadian citizenship, with every intention of applying to have it reinstated once Chrétien was out of office; Black's lawyer, Eddie Greenspan, stated Black argued about his citizenship: "it was stolen from him" by "spiteful" former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. He became a member of the Hurlingham Club, and was created a life peer as Baron Black of Crossharbour, of Crossharbour in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, where he sat as a member of the British Conservative Party until July 13, 2007, when he was denied the whip (effectively expelling him from the Conservative Party grouping in the House of Lords) as a result of his conviction. Black cannot be stripped of his peerage without an Act of British Parliament; however, the British government proposed in a recent White Paper that convicted criminals be stripped of their peerages, meaning Black could lose his title should he lose his appeal in the American courts, and should the government implement the proposal before the end of his prison term.

Even without his Canadian citizenship, Black continues to enjoy the privileges of membership in the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, to which he was appointed by Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn, on the advice of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, in 1992, which includes the use of a special diplomatic Canadian passport.

Criminal fraud trial

Conrad Moffat Black
Status	awaiting appeal
Criminal charge	mail fraud, obstruction of justice
Penalty	awaiting sentencing

It was announced on 17 November, 2003, after an internal inquiry alleged that Black had received over $7 million in unauthorized payments of company funds, that he would resign as chief executive of Hollinger. By 17 January the following year it was reported that the executive committee of the board of directors of Hollinger International had also obtained Black's resignation as chairman. A special committee at Hollinger, investigating the unauthorized payments, filed a lawsuit in New York for the recovery of the money, and Hollinger International filed a $200 million (USD) lawsuit against Lord Black and his former top lieutenant, David Radler, as well as against the companies Black has used to control the publishing.

On 15 November, 2004, the SEC filed civil fraud lawsuits against Lord Black and several others, and just over one year later, on 17 November, eleven criminal fraud charges were brought by U. S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald against Black and three former Hollinger executives; eight of the criminal fraud charges were against Black, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. After a hearing in late 2006, his bail was raised to $21 million (USD).

Fitzgerald laid four new federal charges against Black in Chicago on 15 December, 2005, consisting of racketeering, obstruction of justice, money laundering and wire fraud. Under the racketeering count, Fitzgerald was seeking forfeiture of more than $92,000,000 (USD); the obstruction count related to a video that appears to show Black illegally removing more than a dozen boxes from the Toronto office of Hollinger Inc. Black returned the boxes about a week after the video had become public.

It was on 26 September, 2006, that the Globe and Mail reported Black was taking steps to regain his Canadian citizenship. Although possibly a strategic manoeuvre against potentially serving a sentence in the US or being prevented from crossing the border following a conviction, Lord Black, in an interview on TVOntario on 25 September, claimed that his legal problems had retarded the process by which he would reclaim his citizenship: "I always said that I would take my citizenship back, and if it wasn't for all these legal problems, I would have done it by now." He told interviewer Steve Paikin that he was working through "normal channels."

Black's trial for criminal fraud commenced on 14 March, 2007.

Verdict

After twelve days of deliberation, on 13 July, 2007, a jury found Black guilty of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice, but acquitted him of the other nine charges, including wire fraud and racketeering. He faces a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison when sentenced. His co-accused, Peter Y. Atkinson, John A. Boultbee and Mark Kipnis, were also found guilty.

Six days following, Judge Amy St. Eve sustained Black's $21 million bail package, accepting defence assertions that the former newspaper publisher would return to court for sentencing. St. Eve said Black, while free, remains restricted to travel within the court's jurisdiction in Illinois, and to his Florida home. She said she would take under advisement his request to travel to Toronto.

On November 5, 2007, Judge St. Eve denied Black's bid for a new trial.

Sentencing, originally set for November 30, 2007, has been postponed until December 10, 2007 (The National Post, November 22, 2007).

Reaction and consequences

Black was ordered to return to court 1 August, 2007, for his lawyers to provide more information about his finances and offer greater assurances he would not fight extradition if allowed to leave the United States. The judge indicated she based her concerns on comments Black has made throughout the trial, and since the conviction; Black had told journalists he would continue his "long war" against the charges, and he said "any conviction is unsatisfactory." Further, investigators hired by Hollinger companies have been examining more than forty bank accounts may be, or may have been, held in the name of Black, his wife, or entities that appear to be affiliated with the couple. According to court filings, Ravelston Corp. also had a subsidiary in Barbados called Argent News Inc. and another in Bermuda called Sugra Bermuda Ltd. A report by a special committee of the board of Hollinger International Inc. said Black co-owned two Barbados companies, Moffat Management Inc. and Black-Amiel Management Inc., which both received millions of dollars in payments, the former allegedly owned by Black and his co-defendants, and the latter by Black, his wife and Boultbee. If Black's conviction is upheld on appeal, Hollinger is expected to seek repayment of the fees; in March, 2006, the company said in a regulatory filing that it had spent $61.9-million on legal fees for Black, Boultbee, Kipniss and Atkinson.

After the verdict, New Democratic Party of Canada Member of Parliament Charlie Angus publicly called for Black's expulsion from the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, and for his removal from the Order of Canada, for the latter citing the previous examples of Alan Eagleson and David Ahenakew. The Toronto Star similarly called for Governor General Michaëlle Jean to remove Black from the Order. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that Black would have to go through regular channels to attempt to regain his Canadian citizenship, that membership in the Order of Canada is the purview of the Governor General and that decisions about the Privy Council would only take place after the legal process, including appeal, had been completed. The Order of Canada advisory council to the Governor General is expected to meet in the autumn of 2007 to discuss Conrad Black's appointment to the honour.

Unless Black's verdict is overturned on appeal, the chances of his even being able to cross the border into Canada are slight, as his criminal conviction renders him inadmissible to Canada unless he gets a dispensation from the Crown as per the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Even if he were to regain his right to reside in the country, "Canadian citizenship can't be granted to those who are criminally inadmissible and neither the minister nor the Governor in Council (cabinet) can override that," according to an immigration department spokesperson. The loss of his Canadian citizenship also makes it impossible for Black to be transferred to a Canadian prison where he would be eligible for parole much sooner than if he were to serve time in the United States or Britain. The Canadian government holds a lien against Black's Palm Beach property, currently designated part of his bail surety, for unpaid taxes; Black owns only $8 million in equity and defaulted on the mortgage in June, 2006.

Black also faces a number of suits against him:

• The Ontario Securities Commission and its US counterpart, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, are expected to start proceedings against Black
• Black faces court claims by companies he formerly controlled, including Hollinger Inc. and Hollinger International, now renamed Sun-Times Media Group.
• Class-action suits seeking damages of hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be filed by retail and institutional investors embittered by stock market losses racked up by his former companies after shareholder complaints of accounting irregularities.
• Sun-Times Media Group Inc. is suing Black for US$542 million, accusing him and other former executives of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the company. The suit alleges they engaged in racketeering, allowing the company to seek triple damages under U.S. anti-corruption laws.
• Toronto-based Hollinger Inc. is suing Black, claiming damages of more than US$700 million, including breach of contract, conspiracy, unjust enrichment and unlawful interference with Hollinger's economic interest.
• Sotheby's International Realty Inc., which claims Black owes US$557,000 in commission on the sale of his Park Avenue apartment.
• U.S. institutional investor Cardinal Capital is involved in several suits against Black's companies, including a Chicago-based lawsuit alleging federal securities violations filed by a group including a Louisiana teachers' pension fund.
• Canadian investors have launched $4-billion class-action lawsuit against Black, his wife Barbara Amiel Black, David Radler and others, alleging they suffered market losses that may have been caused by the controversies surrounding Black's management.

Other litigation

Black has filed a libel suit in Ontario, seeking $1.1 billion in damages, against members of the Hollinger International board committee, which produced a 2004 report accusing him of looting the company. He is further seeking $20.6 million plus interest relating to money he paid to Sun-Times Media Group in July 2004. Hollinger Inc., which was formerly controlled by Black and which retains an equity and voting interest in Sun-Times Media Group, said in December it disputes Black's claim for damages and "believes that, in any event, it has a valid basis for offsetting any successful claim by Black against various amounts it has claimed from Black." Black is suing the US Government, claiming the Federal Bureau of Investigation improperly seized US$9 million from the sale of his Park Avenue apartment. Black also has an outstanding $11-million libel suit against British author Tom Bower, claiming his book Conrad & Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge, is "vindictive, high-handed, contemptuous, sadistic, pathologically mendacious and malicious."

Books and other publications

As a young man Black also wrote a thesis on Quebec's controversial longest serving premier, Maurice Duplessis, which was subsequently published in 1977 as a lengthy biography, entitled Duplessis (ISBN 0-7710-1530-5). Duplessis, who died in office in 1959, had been regarded by Canadian historians and journalists as a reactionary authoritarian; Black defended him as a canny progressive force.

While CEO of Hollinger International, Black used its funds to purchase at auction a collection of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's private papers for several million dollars (USD). With the assistance of conservative writers, including his wife, he produced a best-selling 1,280-page biography, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Champion of Freedom (ISBN 978158648184), in 2003.

The book relies heavily upon the information in the FDR collection he owns, emphasizing small, sometimes very personal details of FDR's life.

The book maintains that FDR was neither the guileless, patrician altruist that his admirers would like to portray, nor the dupe for Stalin at Yalta that his opponents portray. Rather, FDR is presented as a complex individual who was able to marshal the forces that saved the United States from the Great Depression and the world from totalitarianism in World War II.

In 1993 Black published an autobiography titled A Life in Progress (ISBN 9781550135206).

Also, in 2004, Black wrote an essay on the possible results had the Japanese not bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, for the imaginary history book What Might Have Been edited by Andrew Roberts.

Black's most recent book, The Invincible Quest: the Life of Richard Milhous Nixon (ISBN 978-0771011238), is a biography of US President Richard Nixon that runs 1,000 pages and was released in Canada in May 2007 near the end of his trial in Illinois. The book reportedly casts Nixon in a more sympathetic light than that in which he is normally seen. Black has told the Globe and Mail that his next book will be "more personal" and "about the events of the day."

Biographies and portrayal in popular culture

• The documentary film Citizen Black, which premiered at the 2004 Montreal and Cambridge film festivals, traces Black's life and filmmaker Debbie Melnyk's attempts in 2003 to interview Black, and her eventual interview. US prosecutors subpoenad unused footage of a 2003 shareholders meeting for use in Black's trial.
• Canadian actor Albert Schultz portrayed Black in the 2006 CTV movie Shades of Black.
• Bower's dual biography Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge (ISBN 0007232349) was published in 2006 by Harper Collins. It was republished in August 2007 with an additional chapter reporting on the trial and its outcomes.
• There is talk of two dramas based on his life: one from Andrew Lloyd Webber, and another from Alastair Beaton.[1]

References

• [2] Guardian Unlimited Special Report - Conrad Black, Hollinger and the Telegraph - Ongoing archive collection of news and analysis.
• [3] SEC - Breeden Report - Complete 512-page copy of the Report of Investigation by the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of Hollinger International Inc.
• [4] - Black fired, faces $200M lawsuit. In 2004 Black faced a number of law suits from investors and others claiming highly inappropriate financial dealings as well as audit fraud concerning circulation at his papers.
• Devin Leonard. "Black & Blue: Shareholders are beating up Hollinger CEO Conrad Black over his huge, tricky pay packages. He calls them 'governance terrorists'". Fortune. 29 September, 2003.
• [5] - News release from the Privy Council of Canada on the lawsuit filed against Jean Chrétien by Conrad Black.

External links

• "Conrad Black's apologia for Richard Nixon": a review in the TLS by Anthony Holden, August 8th 2007
• Conrad Black profile from NNDB
• Barbara Amiel profile from NNDB
• Conrad Black profile from RightWeb
• Conrad Black profile from Media Circus
• Lord Black of Crossharbour: The Life and Times of Conrad Black CBC, documentary originally aired 24 March, 2005
• Conrad Black at IdeaCity on CITY-TV