Conrad Black

Dominion pension dispute

In 1984, the Dominion Stores Board of which Montegu Black was the chairman, upon the direction of Conrad Black who controlled Dominion through Hollinger, withdrew $62 million from the Dominion workers' pension plan surplus for himself and his shareholders. The company said it considered the surplus the rightful property of the employer (Dominion Stores Ltd.). The Dominion employees' union the United Food and Commercial Workers went to court to block the withdrawal. At the time, Dominion was in financial trouble, with stores being sold off, employees laid off, and it was losing money yearly. According to the Supreme Court of Ontario, "Dominion's managers saw the pension funds as a source of succour.". Conrad Black said he was "not running a welfare agency for corrupt union leaders and a slovenly work force." The Supreme Court of Ontario ruled against the company, and ordered them to return $38 million to the pension fund.

Growth and divestment of press holdings

In 1986, Andrew Knight, then editor of The Economist, advised Black an investment could be made in the ailing Telegraph Group (London, U.K.), and Black was able to gain control of the Group for £30 million. By this investment, Black made his first entry into British press ownership. Five years later, he bought The Jerusalem Post, and by 1990, his companies ran over 400 newspaper titles in North America, the majority of them small community papers. For a time from this date he headed the third-largest newspaper group in the Western World. In 1991, the Telegraph Group acquired a 25 percent stake in John Fairfax Holdings, an Australian media company which published the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review. Foreign-ownership laws prevented Black from acquiring a majority stake, but he had effective control of the company. He sold his share to a New Zealand investment firm in 1996 for $513 million, a reported $300 million profit. He subsequently complained about Australia's "capricious and politicized foreign ownership rules".

Hollinger had bought a 23% stake in the Southam newspaper chain in 1992 from TORSTAR, publisher of the Toronto Star. Black and Radler acquired the Chicago Sun-Times in 1994. Hollinger International shares were listed on New York Stock Exchange in 1996, at which time the company boosted its stake in Southam to a control position. Becoming a public company trading in the US has been called "a fateful move, exposing Black's empire to America's more rigorous regulatory regime and its more aggressive institutional shareholders".

Hollinger acquired the Calgary Herald as part of the Southam Inc. purchase in 1996. Cuts and downsizing followed, as well as “editorial directions... to slant the news”. In response, Calgary Herald newsroom staff unionized in 1998, and in 1999–2000, went on strike. In one interaction with a strike leader, Black characterized his own approach to the labour dispute as “amputating gangrenous limbs.”

Under Black, Hollinger launched the National Post in Toronto in 1998. This newspaper was sold throughout the country in direct competition with The Globe and Mail. From 1999 to 2000, Hollinger International sold several newspapers in five deals worth a total of CA$3 billion, a total that included millions of dollars in "non-compete agreements" for Hollinger insiders.

Fate of Hollinger

Institutional investor Tweedy, Browne, who owned a substantial minority of Hollinger stock, opposed the payment of non-compete fees to Hollinger management in connection with the sales and requested on the day before the annual meeting in May 2003 that a special committee be appointed to look into the compensation of management. Black agreed to the demand but citing such fees was standard procedure in the newspaper industry and had been requested by buyers and had been properly disclosed. The special committee and its counsel, former chairman of the SEC Richard C. Breeden, discovered that David Radler had misled the Hollinger directors about the extent of his own participation in some of the related party transactions to sell otherwise unclaimed community newspapers in the US and also that two of the smaller transactions involving non-compete payments had not been signed by the vendors. Breeden involved the US Attorney in Chicago, and Radler, after about 18 months, would promise to plead guilty to one count of fraud and to provide evidence against Black and others in exchange for a light sentence in Canada.

Black made an agreement with Breeden, shortly after the unsigned status of the two non-compete agreements came to light, by which he would remain as chairman, but temporarily vacate the position of chief executive, pending verification that he, Black, had known nothing of these problems, which were handled by the company's counsel, and occurred in Radler's American Publishing division. Black and Breeden were in negotiations, sponsored by Henry A. Kissinger, who was a director of Hollinger, when the special committee, without warning, sued Black and others. Black counter-sued, and included a libel suit in Canada.

The Hollinger group of companies was effectively dismantled as a result of the cascade of criminal and civil lawsuits that followed in relation to sales of papers and intellectual property to third parties, most alleging misrepresentation and some alleging false or deliberately misleading accounts having been presented. The costs incurred by Hollinger International through the investigation of Black and his associates climbed to US$200 million. Black claims a significant portion of the sums paid by Hollinger International went to Richard C. Breeden. Black himself incurred large legal fees.

Black resigned from the board of Hollinger in 2005, and many of Hollinger International's assets ended up being sold at prices significantly lower than those contemplated in uncompleted negotiations while Black was with the company. Shortly afterward, a number of court and regulatory orders left the company with no income or operating business.

On August 2, 2007, Hollinger filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and the United States. At the time, the company was 78% owned by Black's company Ravelston. Hollinger continued to assert control over Sun-Media Times Group Inc. Hollinger shares were delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange in August 2008.

Media host and commentator

Black co-hosted a weekly talk show, The Zoomer, which premiered 7 October 2013 on VisionTV in Canada, and ran for two years. He interviewed Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and Justin Trudeau who went on respectively to be President of the United States, British prime minister, and Prime Minister of Canada; and also interviewed Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party. From January 2015 through 2016, Black hosted Conversations with Conrad, a series on VisionTV in which Black conducted long-form one-on-one interviews with notable figures such as Margaret Atwood, Brian Mulroney, Rick Mercer, Barry Humphries and Michael Coren.

As of June 2020, Black is a commentator on two weekly national radio segments in the United States, and writes columns on online sites including National Review, RealClearPolitics, The Epoch Times, and American Greatness in addition to his weekly column in the National Post.

Supreme Court review

The Supreme Court of the United States heard an appeal of his case on 8 December 2009 and rendered a decision in June 2010. Black's application for bail was rejected by both the Supreme Court and the US District Court judge who sentenced him.

On 24 June 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled 8–0 with one recusal, instructing the 7th Circuit to review all four of Black's convictions including the obstruction of justice charge, finding that the definition of honest services fraud used in Judge St. Eve's (the trial judge) charge to the jury in Black's case was too broad, "unconstitutionally vague", ruling the law could apply only to cases where bribes and kickbacks had changed hands and ordered the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago to review three fraud convictions against Black in light of the Supreme Court's new definition. The Court reviewed Black's case and determined whether his fraud convictions stood or if there should be a new trial. The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the jailed former media baron's obstruction-of-justice conviction, for which he was serving a concurrent 6½-year sentence.

Later developments

Black's lawyers filed an application for bail pending the appeals court's review. Prosecutors contested Black's bail request, saying in court papers that Black's trial jury had proof that Black committed fraud. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals granted bail on 19 July 2010 under which Black was released pending retrial on a $2 million unsecured bond put up by conservative philanthropist Roger Hertog and ordered to remain on bail in the continental United States until at least 16 August, when his bail hearing was to resume, and the date by which Black and the prosecution were ordered by the Court of Appeals to submit written arguments for that court's review of his case. Black's bail, initially, pending trial, had been $38 million.

Black was to appear once again in a Chicago court on 16 August to provide full and detailed financial information to the judge, who would then consider his request to be allowed to return to Canada while on bail.

Black's legal representatives, led by Miguel Estrada, advised the court they would not provide the requisite accounting and would thus not be interested in petitioning the court further on the matter. Black was under no compulsion to make this disclosure as he had initiated the appeal for a bail variation of his own volition. His next court appearance, where he might reapply for permission to return to Canada, was set for 20 September 2010.

On 28 October 2010, the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the dismissal of two of the three vacated fraud accounts and retained one and the obstruction count. The court ruled that he must be re-sentenced.

On 17 December 2010, Black lost an appeal as to fact and law on his remaining convictions for fraud and obstruction of justice. The three judge panel did not explain its reasoning. On 31 May 2011, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear an appeal from the circuit court's decision, also without comment. The re-sentencing on the two remaining counts by the original trial judge occurred on 24 June 2011. Black's lawyers recommended he be sentenced to the 29 months he had already served while the prosecution argued for Black to complete his original 6½ year sentence. The probation officer's report recommended a sentence of between 33 and 41 months. At the hearing, Judge St. Eve re-sentenced Black to a reduced term of 42 months and a fine of $125,000, returning him to prison on 6 September 2011 to serve the remaining seven months of his sentence, allowing for a reduction for good conduct, for which the trial judge commended him.

On 30 June 2011, Black published an article for the National Review Online that provided his scathing view of the legal case, detailing it as a miscarriage of justice and an "unaccountable and often lawless prosecution".

Black's motion that the last remaining counts of conviction be vacated due to prosecutorial misconduct and his claim that he had been denied the right to have the defense counsel of his choice were denied in February 2013, along with his request for an evidentiary hearing. Black continues to maintain his innocence, and has likened the United States justice system to that of North Korea. Black has publicly stated that he is proud to have been "sent to prison for crimes I would never dream of committing, for having fought it out as well as anyone could, and for making the best I could of a bad situation".

Incarceration

Until 21 July 2010, Black was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution (Low Security) in Sumter County, Florida, a part of Federal Correctional Complex, Coleman.

Following his release, Black wrote a column for Canada's National Post on his time in prison. He described US inmates as an "ostracized, voiceless legion of the walking dead".

Black did not return to the Federal Correctional Institution in Coleman, Florida. On 6 September 2011, he was sent to a different Florida federal correction facility in Miami. He was released from prison on 4 May 2012. Although he became a citizen of the United Kingdom in 2001 and became a British peer, he chose to live in his native Canada after his prison term was completed. Black, who renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001 as a result of Black v Chrétien, was granted a one-year temporary resident permit to live in Canada in March 2012 when he was still serving his sentence.

Upon his release from prison, Black was deported to Canada.

Removal from the Order of Canada and Queen's Privy Council for Canada

Black was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1990. In 2011, after Black returned to prison due to the failure of his appeal, Rideau Hall, the seat of the Chancellery of Honours, confirmed that the honour accorded to Black was under review by the order's Advisory Council, which has the power to recommend "the termination of a person's appointment to the Order of Canada if the person has been convicted of a criminal offence".

Once the review process started, Black submitted a written application in defence of keeping his place in the Order of Canada, but failed in his efforts to persuade the advisory council he should appear before them to defend his case orally. Black took the matter to the Federal Court of Canada, which ruled that the council had no obligation to change its regular review process (which allows for written submissions only) simply to accommodate Black. Black attempted to appeal the court's decision without success.

In an October 2012 interview, Black intimated that he would rather resign from the order than be removed: "I would not wait for giving these junior officials the evidently almost aphrodisiacal pleasure of throwing me out. I would withdraw", he told CBC's Susan Ormiston. "In fact, I wouldn't be interested in serving."

The Governor General of Canada, David Johnston, announced Black's removal from the Order of Canada and his expulsion from the Queen's Privy Council for Canada in January 2014. Johnston had been recommended to do so by the advisory council of the Order of Canada and the Canadian prime minister. As a result, Black may also no longer employ the post-nominal initials OC and PC.

Pardon

On 15 May 2019, US president Donald Trump granted Black a full pardon. Trump noted "broad support from many high-profile individuals who have vigorously vouched for his exceptional character". Black is a friend of Trump and has written flatteringly about him in opinion articles and in the 2018 book Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other. Many news sources linked Black's recent book and his long friendship with Trump to the pardon. The Washington Post noted, "In addition to his book, Black frequently writes columns praising Trump and considers the president a friend". Upon his release from prison, Black had been deported to Canada and was previously barred from entering the US for 30 years. The pardon allows him to travel to the US.

Investigations by the Ontario Securities Commission and Canada Revenue Agency

In July 2013, the Ontario Securities Commission restarted its case against Black and two other former Hollinger executives, John Boultbee and Peter Atkinson. The regulator sought to have them banned from trading in the province's capital markets or sitting on a public board of directors. The case alleged violations of the Securities Act (Ontario). The case had been postponed pending the exhaustion of Black's appeals of his US fraud convictions. The securities case alleges that Black and his two fellow directors created a scheme was to use the sale of several Hollinger newspapers in order to "divert certain proceeds from Hollinger Inc. to themselves through contrived 'non-compete' payments".

Black applied to have the proceedings dismissed on the grounds that he was already voluntarily refraining from being an officer or director of an Ontario corporation and undertaken to ask the approval of the OSC if he ever desired to become a director or officer of an Ontario public company. In February 2015 the OSC placed a permanent ban on Black being a director or officer of a publicly traded company in Ontario, but declined to restrict his right to trade. Black referred to the case in his column in the National Post on 8 March 2015, stating that the OSC did not come to the subject with clean hands, having "vaporized" hundreds of millions of dollars of shareholder's equity in 2005 when it blocked Black's bid to privatize Hollinger Inc., pushing that company into bankruptcy and a total loss for the shareholders.

In early 2014, the Tax Court of Canada ruled that Black owed the Canadian government taxes on $5.1 million of income accrued in 2002.

In mid-May 2016, it was revealed that the CRA had intervened to prevent the sale and lease-back, with a buy-back option, of Black's home on Park Lane Circle. After discussion, the sale-lease back proceeded and Black provided other assets as security pending the settlement or adjudication of the CRA claim.

On 14 June 2019, the Tax Court of Canada ruled that Black is entitled to deduct interest expenses on a $32.3 million loan he used to satisfy judgments against himself and Hollinger International.

Peerage controversy and citizenship

In 2001, British prime minister Tony Blair advised Queen Elizabeth II to confer on Black a life peerage in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. His name had been put forward by the Conservative leader William Hague, and he would sit as a Conservative peer. Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien advised Elizabeth not to appoint Black a peer, citing the Nickle Resolution of 1919 and a long history since then of objections to Canadian citizens accepting British peerages. Black at the time held both Canadian and British citizenship. Black pointed out that the Nickle Resolution referred to Canadian resident citizens, not dual citizens living in the United Kingdom, and was not binding, but when Blair said that the Queen would prefer not to choose between the conflicting recommendations of two prime ministers of countries of which she was the monarch, Black asked that the matter be deferred. He litigated in Canada, claiming that Chrétien had no jurisdiction to create a class of citizen in another country, consisting of one person (as there were other dual citizens in the House of Lords), ineligible to receive an honour in that country for services deemed to have been rendered in that country, because of the objections of the Canadian prime minister of the day. Later in 2001, after the Ontario Superior Court and Court of Appeal had ruled that they had no jurisdiction in this area, Black renounced his Canadian citizenship, remaining a United Kingdom citizen, which allowed him to accept the peerage without further controversy. He was created Baron Black of Crossharbour on 30 October 2001.

Black sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative until 2007, when the party whip was withdrawn following his conviction in the United States. He subsequently sat as a non-affiliated member of the Lords. In an interview with BBC reporter Jeremy Paxman in 2012, Black stated that he could return to the House of Lords as a voting member; comparing himself to Nelson Mandela, Black said that a criminal conviction did not prohibit him from sitting, since the House of Lords had no restriction on such a case. This situation was later changed under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, which allowed members to be expelled following a criminal conviction.

In an interview with Peter Mansbridge in May 2012, Black said he would consider applying for Canadian citizenship "within a few years", when he hoped the matter would no longer be controversial and he could "make an application like any other person who has been a temporary resident". Black regained his Canadian citizenship in 2023. At that time, Black said he intended to resume his legislative work in the House of Lords.

Black ceased to be a member of the House of Lords on 9 July 2024 under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 because of non-attendance in the preceding session of Parliament. He told CBC News that he was not aware of the cessation of his membership and that it did not matter to him, despite his statement from the year prior expressing the opposite.