Black trial drawing to close

Jurors in the trial of former media mogul Conrad Black have been told to prepare for closing arguments next week.

The jurors have heard over three months’ of evidence in the trial that began on March 14, and closing arguments are likely to take all of next week.

The Canadian-born former press lord, 62, and three other former Hollinger International executives are accused of swindling the company out of around £30m (€44.5m) through the sale of hundreds of the company’s community newspapers across the United States and Canada.

Millions of dollars were paid in exchange for promises from Hollinger that it would not compete in the circulation areas of the newspapers.

Such payments are common in the industry, but some of the money found its way to two smaller, Toronto-based companies controlled by Black and directly into the pockets of Black and two former Hollinger vice presidents, John Boultbee and Peter Atkinson.

Atkinson and Boultbee are on trial along with Chicago lawyer Mark Kipnis, who served as Hollinger International’s corporate secretary and is accused of drawing up paperwork that made the payments possible.

Prosecutors say Black deceived Hollinger International’s board of directors and its key audit committee about the noncompete payments.

All four defendants deny that they deceived the board or the audit committee and say nothing they did was against the law.

Black is also charged with defrauding Hollinger through his purchase from the company of a Park Avenue flat, billing the company for two-thirds of a £30,000 (€44,500) birthday party for his wife at fashionable restaurant La Grenouille and taking the company plane on a two-week vacation for himself and his wife to the island of Bora Bora in French Polynesia.