Since the trial is on hiatus until Monday, the webbed media pieces relating to it delve into background and analysis, except for two that covered a Toronto news item:
1. The American Spectator has seen fit to notice the Conrad Black trial, through a webbed column by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Concurring with Peter Worthington's forecast that Mr. Black will be found not guilty, Mr. Tyrrell mentions that the press has largely grown tired of the case, as of now. He also makes the penetrating observation that the relevant jealousies in this case were those of the minority shareholders. (This column has also been webbed by TownHall.com, with a comments section.) For the sake of political balance, I call attention to Now Magazine's re-webbing of a Naomi Klein piece originally posted in the Guardian Online's "Comment Is Free" section.
2. A report by Paul Waldie of the Globe and Mail discusses the relevance of Horizon Communications, a company largely owned by Mr. Black and Mr. Radler which was, in industry terms, in competition with Hollinger International. The existence of Horizon was raised briefly by Edward Genson in his cross-examination of Lloyd Case. Csr. Genson tried to elaborate, but a prosecution successfully objected to his development of the point. The objection was made by Julie Ruder, a member of the prosecution team who has gotten hardly any press so far.
3. Conrad Black himself managed to garner a mention in the press, for showing up in Toronto for a book-launch party held to celebrate the publication of George Jonas' latest book, Reflections on Islam: Ideas, Opinions, Arguments.
4. Joe Warmington, covering the same story, has details of how both of the Blacks acted (to him) at that party, held at Massey College. He claims to have crashed it, and saw not a hint of rancor from Barbara Black. Posted by both Canoe CNews and the Toronto Sun. It's been mentioned in the Manhattan Gawker's "Media Bubble" write-up, which also mentions that Primedia is seeking a new CEO.
5. The Birmingham News has a re-cap of this past week's trial events. No views; all summary.
6. Michael Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times has two notes on the Conrad Black trial in his latest column. The first wonders if Mr. Black will testify; the second...
7. A column by the Toronto Star's Christopher Hume mentions the trial only in passing, while discussing Italy's use of public-private sector partnerships and recommending such a mix for Canada.
8. Legalbrief of South Africa has an opinion piece, entitled "Arrogance Is No Crime," that is available to subscribers only.
9. Maclean's magazine, in a press release, has announced that Mark Steyn will have an article on the trial in this week's print edition.
10. The Financial Post's Peter Breiger has had his observations on last week's testimony posted at the "Black Board," which contains observations from FP reporters covering the trial. The entry devoted to Mr. Brieger's focuses on decoding Thomas Henson's folksy figures of speech.
11. News of the Toronto party for George Jonas has made its way over the pond, thanks to the Times Online. The report there includes a note that Mr. Black "set aside his concerns over an awkward interrogation by immigration officers" to attend. It also notes that Mr. Jonas was the co-writer of Eddie Greenspan's autobiography, Greenspan for the Defence. (Csr. Greenspan was long known in Toronto for bring absent-minded about where his pens were.) An abbreviated version of the Times write-up has been webbed by the Australian.
MSNBC.com has just webbed a biographical article, from FT.com, on that same Eddie Greenspan, with a briefer spotlight on Edward Genson at the end of it.
Also: the Conrad-Black-in-Toronto story is also briefly recounted at the Quill and Quire blog, "Quillblog," as referenced to by Torontoist. The Quillblog entry has photos from the event, which number in the double digits.
And finally: a blog entry in "The Brad Blog" claims that Patrick Fitzgerald, prosecutor emeritus of the trial, was "swift-boated by Bush admin." It notes that the supposedly "undistinguished" ranking, purportedly of Csr. Fitzgerald's performance as a prosecutor, was really a list of ten U.S. attorneys, with three of them marked for "get rid of'" and five earmarked for "keep if you can." Csr. Fitzgerald simply was not on the list, which was not a true job rating: "According to sworn testimony by D. Kyle Sampson, today in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Fitzgerald was rated 'very strong' internally in the DOJ." Mr. Sampson also testified that he didn't earmark Csr. Fitzgerald because "'I knew he was handling a very sensitive case, and I really didn’t want to rate him one way or another.'” The entry that relates the entire story implies that the Conrad Black trial was that "sensitive case."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The problem with Tyrell's defence - (same with Steyn} - is that he leaves the reader with the impression, by implication, that Conrad Black was not a minority shareholder in International.
Steyn also has occluded by mixing up - in the context of his columns - the meaning of controlling shareholders and majority shareholders.
Again - this brings is back to crux of the problem = the structure of the corporation and the specfic requirments of Delaware corporate law.
You have a good point. Normally, the elision of the difference between different classes of common shares, with different voting rights, is immateral. I found this out when I first found out about them in the 1980s. When looking at the stock listings, I saw that the non-voting shares of a Canadian company, selling at about $15 a share or so, traded at 1/8 less than the voting shares. At that time, it was only a tick's difference.
I later read the rule of thumb that voting shares only trade at a signficant premium to the non-voting shares during takeover battles, when voting rights do carry a premium value. So, what I had seen back then was normal. I don't know how much financial reporting Mr. Stein has done, but he may have fallen into that habit if he has. This story, of course, is more of a corporate-legal one than a financial one.
It makes me wonder, though: how would the controversy have changed if Hollinger Interational's common class "A" shares had simply been set up as non-voting shares at the outset? It's possible that the 10 votes for each "B" share, and only 1 for the "A" share, galled the holders of them in a way that making the "A"s non-voting common shares would not have.
I'm probably wrong on that point, though. Making the "A" shares non-voting was probably impracticable.
Post a Comment