Media Roundup: Did He Bring Her Down?

As you may expect, the overnight webbed media reports on the Conrad Black trial concentrated on the fiery exchange between Eddie Greenspan and Marie-Josée Kravis:

1. From the Chicago Tribune, Rudolph Bush reports that Mrs. Kravis "underwent nearly seven hours of often blistering cross-examination." It also mentions the relatively quieter cross-examination of Ron Safer, Mark Kipnis' counsel.

2. Conrad Black biographer Richard Siklos, in the New York Times, reports on Mrs. Kravis' memory lapses, but also notes that she testified, "questions were not asked because some transactions brought before the committee were presented as noncompetition agreements rather than as related-party transactions, which might have drawn closer scrutiny." His report also covers the direct- and cross-examination relating to the Bora Bora vacation and Mrs. Black's 60th birthday party. With repect to the former, Mrs. Kravis stipulated that Hollinger Int'l had no formal policy regarding the use of any corporate jets, but "'it was the law'" that the company followed, a statement which Mr. Greenspan looked puzzled at. It also notes that Mrs. Kravis was one of the co-hosts of a 2003 book launch party for Mr. Black, at a time when a cloud was growing over his head in NYC society. The same article has been entered into NYT's "Deal Book" blog.

3. From Chicago Public Radio, a brief note that former Gov. Thompson is expected to testify today.

4. From MSNBC.com, an FT report on yesterday's cross-examination, which starts off with Mrs. Kravis' admission that she missed 11 disclosures of the individual non-compete payments. Richard Burt's similar omissions are tied in with Mrs Kravis', and the following point is made: "While the government has said the payments were not, as Lord Black and others have insisted, paid to the individuals at the behest of third-party buyers, the fact that Mrs Kravis and other directors repeatedly missed disclosures of the payments in drafts of financial statements and in annual reports has complicated its case."

5. The Sydney Morning Herald has a lengthy report on yesterday's testimony and drama.

6. The events of yesterday have reached the notice of the Grand Cayman Island's Caymanian Compass.

7. From the Ottawa Citizen, a report that focuses upon the "fireworks" between Mrs. Kravis and Csr. Greenspan in yesterdays' cross-examination. It notes that "Mr. Greenspan began questioning Ms. Kravis so quickly she didn't have time to finish answering his questions. The pair's voices rose until the judge intervened." An expanded version of the same report has been webbed by the National Post, which includes, amongst other added details, Csr. Greenspan making the point that the 1998 sale of American Trucker was also a related-party transaction. Both versions have a quip from Eddie Greenspan near the end: "Isn't it true that if Conrad had not signed the non-compete agreement, Asper could have been burnt to a crisp by the Sun, correct?" Both also note that "Ms. Kravis did not appear to find the metaphor amusing."

8. Paul Waldie of the Globe and Mail has a report that begins with: "Toronto lawyer Edward Greenspan has always had a reputation for aggressive cross-examinations and yesterday he put his rough style to work on Marie-Josée Kravis." In addition to the part of the questioning that led to the admonishments of him from Judge St. Eve, it also mentions that "Mr. Greenspan grew testy on several occasions when Ms. Kravis tried to challenge him." The report also notes the prosecution's argument that the defendants had lied to the board, which had caused the omissions of throroughness by the audit committee members.

9. The Toronto Star's Rick Westhead's write-up starts with a report on Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination and, near the end of it, fills in some detail about the prosecution's claim that the defendants lied to the committee: "Kravis...told the court that in every case where non-compete payments had been made, the audit committee had been told that buyers of Hollinger's newspapers had demanded them." At its end, the report notes that Eric Sussman supplied detail of the prosecution obstruction-of-justice charge, which relates to the removal of those 13 boxes from Hollinger Inc's head office. "Sussman said former Hollinger Inc. board member Donald Vale has told the government he initially allowed the removal of the boxes because he believed their contents had already been recorded and copied."

10. AccountancyAge.com has a brief write-up on Mrs. Kravis' entire testimony so far.

11. Another report by the Globe's Mr. Waldie has a profile on James R. Thompson, the third and final member of Hollinger Int'l's audit committee, who is slated to testify today. At the end of it, he also mentions a non-disclosure scandal involving the current CEO of Sun-Times Media Group, the new name for Hollinger Int'l.

[Eight] paragraphs have been added to the bottom of the same report, with details on the cross-examination of Mrs. Kravis by Benito Romano, defense counsel for Peter Atkinson. He accused her of changing her view of events so as to escape from an SEC investigation. "Mr. Romano pointed out what he said were inconsistencies between what Ms. Kravis told investigators in early 2005, before the SEC probe, and what she has said during the trial."

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Mark Steyn explains Eddie Greenspan's bringing up of the American Trucker transaction in his latest trial blog entry: "'But you never told the jury that it was your husband’s company Primedia that bought American Trucker?'" After this question was objected to by Julie Ruder on the grounds of relevance, "'Relevance?' said Greenspan in disbelief. Mrs Kravis has been sold as the Impartial Arbiter of Related-Party Transactions but her husband Henry’s deal with the company his wife’s a director of – a $76 million related-party transaction – is not relevant?" At this point, Mr. Steyn contented himself with a note that the American justice system seems a little out of balance when compared with the U.K's.