Friday's extended session

Paul Waldie was just interviewed on BNN (2: 25 PM EDT) with the latest on today's testimony, in a special hurry-up-the-trial Friday session. He reported that the final part of the testimony from Beth (Elizabeth) DeMerchant was heard. Prosecutors kept hammering away at their theme: the non-compete payments should have gone to the Hollinger International shareholders, and should not have been called bonuses to the board of directors. Ms. DeMerchant was very agreeable, Mr. Waldie related, but her testimony was "kind of a wash." He ended his interview with this forecast: once Richard Burt appears on the stand, the prosecution will push their case hard. He also reported that the trial will sit next Friday, too.

Romina Maurino has a report out, webbed by 680 News, in which she relates that prosecutor Eric Sussman, in redirect examination, implied that Hollinger Int'l agreed to disclose the individual non-compete payments associated with the sale to CanWest because they wanted financing, not because they had bad advice from Torys, LLP. "The company would have to disclose the payments whenever it needed to raise money, prosecutor Eric Sussman said, and knew that was the case because outside lawyer Beth DeMerchant had explained it to co-defendant Peter Atkinson."

Near its end, the report also discloses that Ms. DeMerchant did hear of Jack Boultbee receiving a non-compete payment, which she divulged under cross-examination. "'My notes indicate CNHI and American Trucker were mentioned," she said. "It's possible the other were too and I couldn't write fast enough.'" [An updated version of this same report says at the end that next week's testimony is expected to start off with Marilyn Stitt, a KPMG accountant and Hollinger Int'l's auditor.]

Mr. Waldie's write-up has been webbed by the Globe and Mail. In it, he reports that Csr. Sussman emphasized that the entire sum of the $80 million non-compete fees from the CanWest deal went to individuals, and that parent company Hollinger Inc. got none, even though it was supposed to receive a $4 million fee. He further reports that "[d]efence lawyers also pointed out that the payments were disclosed to shareholders in other company filings."

The report from Reuters' Andrew Stern begins with a profile of Mr. Burt, who is expected to take the stand Monday. After introducing Mr. Burt, the report summarizes the remainder of Ms. DeMerchant's testimony; it includes a redirect question, asked by Csr. Sussman: "'[s]hould the audit committee be told when executives are inserted into non-compete agreements without the request of the buyer (of the newspapers)?'" She answered "'[y]es.'" Also introduced in her testimony was the fact that the mangagement fees to Ravelston were lowered, at the request of Mr. Asper, "though the overall purchase price was raised and more was allocated to non-compete payments that benefited the executives."

Bloomberg's report, written by both Andrew Harris and Joe Schneider and webbed by the Chicago Tribune, begins with an interview with Conrad Black outside of the courtroom. He said, among other things, that "the sale was an 'outstanding' deal, that he had no reason to hide the noncompete payments attached to it and that he favored making them public.... Black characterized as 'rubbish' prosecution claims that the payments were improper." It also discloses that the lowering of the Ravelston management fee was elicited by Edward Genson's cross-examination; just before mentioning Ms. Stitt and Mr. Burt, it ends with a quote from Eddie Greenspan: "Greenspan said he was "not unhappy" with the progress of the case."

The Associated Press report has been webbed by the Belleville News-Democrat. It includes the reason that Peter Atkinson brought in Cravath, Swaine and Moore: to correct a mistake in the Torys work that Mr. Atkinson spotted.

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A Canadian Press report, webbed by AZCentral.com of Phoenix, compares the Conrad Black trial to the one of Robert Pickton, an accused mass murderer from B.C., in this aspect: both trials are long and complicated, and both received wide coverage when the trials opened. The coveraged faded, though, when each trial got down to the thicket of evidence. (It's a bit of an odd comparison; if anything, it shows either how sanitized the presentation of the evidence in the Pickton trial has been, or it evinces a certain fastidiousness in the Canadian media.)

[There's a newer one out, webbed by 940 News, in which Professor Alan Young explains why the trial of Conrad Black seems to have drawn more media attention than the trial of Robert Pickton has: even though murder is inherently more attention-drawing than even crooked corporate finance is, '[t]he Black trial is full of personalities, larger-than-life personalities'... 'The Pickton trial is about a marginalized community. There is no gripping narrative.'" Mark Jette, a former defense attorney from Vancouver, is quoted in the report as saying that grisly evidence introduced into the Pickton trial will change this relative dearth of media coverage, which Prof. Young concurs with.]

Also, as reported on BNN (2:45 PM EDT,) Congress has just passed a bill requiring a non-binding shareholders' vote on top executive pay levels for public companies. It has yet to reach the Senate. The bill also includes a non-binding vote on golden parachutes; details on it here.


A profile of Henry Kravis has been posted by The Independent, in which Conrad Black is mentioned in two paragraphs that briefly profile his current wife, Marie-Josée. (She was one of the three audit commitee members on the board of directors of Hollinger Int'l during the time when those suspicious transactions and perks were gotten.) Its theme is that the real man is quite different from the hard-charging, aggressive image of him.