Paul Saunders, In His Own Testimony

Paul Waldie of the Globe and Mail has a report on Paul Saunders' testimony, which centred around a phone call he had had with Peter Atkinson. "'I told him the company already was at risk of damages brought by shareholders,' Mr. Saunders testified. 'I said that the corporation may already be in breach of the law.'" (Note: this quote doesn't indicate which law Csr. Saunders was referring to.) Near the end, Mr. Waldie mentions cross-examination, in which Mr. Atkinson's defense lawyer Michael Schachter "pointed out that it was Mr. Atkinson who asked Cravath for guidance once the disclosure issue surfaced. Other defence lawyers have also noted that Mr. Atkinson did not mention the other payments because that was not the topic of the phone call." Csr. Schachter also brought up another possibly relevant point, quoted at the very end of the article.

(It seems that Csr. Schachter is veering towards deploying the same point that Roger Martin mentions in this blog entry, about the most in-demand lawyers having a "can-do" attitude for their clients.)

Romina Maurino has a report on this morning's testimony out, webbed by 680 News, which ties Csr. Saunders' testimony in with that of his colleague, William "Bud" Rogers. With regard to the relevance of proxy and SEC disclosures, Ms. Maurino notes that the "[p]rosecutors have tried to show that the company's failure to disclose the payments implies a pattern of concealment." [An updated report has been webbed by the Toronto Star, which relates that Mr. Atkinson accepted the point made by Csr. Saunders in that phone call. "While Atkinson [had] then asked what could be done to limit damages and how the payments could be disclosed, Saunders told lead prosecutor Eric Sussman, the lawyer didn't speak to anyone at Hollinger about the matter again."]

Mr. Waldie was interviewed on BNN, at about 2:20 PM ET. While being interviewed, he said that Csr. Saunders' role "was not very big" and he wasn't on the stand very long. According to Mr. Waldie, the lawyer's testimony was "very clear and precise." All three members of the Hollinger Int'l audit committee, Richard Burt, Marie-Josée Kravis and James R. Thompson, should be on the stand within "a couple of weeks" - and before David Radler.

Andrew Stern of Reuters has a report that includes testimony from Ms. DeMerchant that was elicited by cross-examination. She testified that the negotiations for the sale to CanWest proceeded up until almost the last minute; that both Mr. Black and Mr. Radler signed non-compete agreements with CanWest and that she expected both Mr. Atkinson and Jack Boultbee to do so; that Mr. Boultbee had saved Hollinger Int'l a "big amount," which defense attorney Gus Newman pegged at $400 million, in tax payments because of how he had structured the deal; and, in testimony given earlier, "that Black had inserted wording into a disclosure of the non-compete payments for Hollinger's board of directors that 'any reasonably knowledgeable shareholder' would recognize the CanWest sale had lifted Hollinger International's stock price." His report ends on a lighter note, mentioning an exchange between she and Ron Safer, Mark Kipnis' defense counsel. The defense also established that she had merely been somewhat ignorant of (presumably, the spirit of) the relevant U.S. disclosure laws, as set up by the Securities and Exchage Commission.

(She may also have been unaware of the fact that Conrad Black had signed a consent decree with the SEC in 1982, which the two lawyers from Cravath, Swaine and Moore would not have been.)

The Illinois Southern has webbed today's Associated Press report, which sums up the testimony of Csr. Saunders.

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If you thought that David Radler had shed himself of his legal troubles with his settlement and plea bargain, think again. Paul Waldie's latest article discloses Mr. Radler's latest legal woe: a motion for a modification to an expected order dismissing him as a defendant from a Sun-Times Media Group lawsuit against Conrad Black, him and (probably) the rest of the defendants; for all I know, it's all and sundry parties. The motion to modify was filed by none other than Ravelston Corp. - which is making sure that the decks are cleared for any lawsuit Ravelston files against him.