Wednesday's Testimony So Far

BNN is back to daytime coverage of the Conrad Black trial. Here's the latest from them, as reported on-camera by Paul Waldie:

Fred Creasey was testifying on how the non-compete agreements were accounted for - specifically, the CanWest one. He had asked Jack Boultbee how to account for the non-compete payments; he was told by Mr. Boultbee not to worry about it, as the payments related to individuals. Then, in 2003, he investigated the CanWest transaction, went to Mr. Boultbee and heard the same; Mr. Boultbee had "advisors" that said it was okay to leave the non-compete payment out of corporate accounts.

The prosecution takes "great pains" to explain any relevant financial terminology, through asking the witnesses to explain all terms carefully. Conrad Black's alleged personal use of corporate funds will be testified about during this afternoon's shift.

A written report by Mr. Waldie has now been webbed by the Globe and Mail. It adds the detail that, at the time of the CanWest sale, Mr. Creasey was the controller of Hollinger International and Mr. Boultbee was its CFO.

[Mr. Creasey later became the CFO of Hollinger Inc, a position he assumed before Jan. 1, 2003; see the bottom of this quarterly report for confirmation. So, the '03 investigation he pursued was conducted while he was a CFO himself, though not of Hollinger Int'l. Much later, he became Hollinger Int'l's CFO,]


Andrew Stern of Reuters has a webbed report covering an unanticipated line of questioning by Edward Genson in the cross-examination of Angela Way. "Genson had the secretary...read minutes of board meetings showing that the board and a subset of its members who served as an audit committee approved the payments." Mr. Stern's write-up also discloses that the audit committee itself was investigated, without any charges resulting, and that Mr. Kipnis didn't instruct Ms. Way to keep any hidden files. (This last point was established by questioning from defense lawyer Patricia Brown-Holmes.)

Another report, based on the Reuters one, also contains the fact that the minutes being focused upon contained a request by CanWest that Conrad Black and David Radler be paid $26 million each, in exchange for refraining from buying Canadian newspapers. The reporter, Peter Brieger, also notes its significance.

The story's also been picked up by CNNMoney. The version they've webbed also has related links from their earlier reports.


A write-up by David Litterick of the Telegraph summarizes both Ms. Way's and Mr. Creasey's morning testimony. The former, as part of the cross-examination of her, testified that at "one meeting of the board, directors had agreed that the '2.5pc allocated to non-compete agreements [from sale prices] was consistent with the amount of payments made for non-competition agreements in previous Hollinger International transactions,' according to the minutes."

As far as I know, Ms. Way was not subject to redirect examination by the prosecution.