Born 25 August 1944, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) Black is a former financier, newspaper magnate and biographer and has been convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice in the United States.
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Black is Canadian-born, but publicly renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001 in order to accept a life peerage in the British House of Lords, an offer blocked by then Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien. He is married to Barbara Amiel, a British-born journalist.
During his career Black, owned several newspapers in a number of countries, including the Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun Times, the Jerusalem Post and some 400 newspapers in North America. He was responsible for launching the Canadian National Post, a well read national publication.
Black was convicted in the United States federal court on July 13, 2007 on multiple counts of fraud and was sentenced on 10 December 2007 to serve 78 months in a federal prison and to pay a fine of US$125,000. The BBC reported at the time: "Black, who remained impassive as the verdicts were read out, was found guilty of taking money owed to investors in the form of 'non-compete' payments originating from the sale of newspaper titles”. Black has announced an appeal. Black reported to a United States federal prison in Florida on 3 March 2008.
Black was first educated at Upper Canada College (UCC), during which time, at age 8, he purchased shares in General Motors. Six years later, according to Tom Bower's biography: “Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge”, he was expelled from UCC for selling stolen exam papers. He then attended Trinity College School where he lasted less than a year, being expelled for insubordinate behaviour.
Black eventually graduated from a small, now defunct private school in Toronto called Thornton Hall, continuing on to post-secondary education at Carleton University. For a time, he attended Toronto's Osgoode Hall Law School, York University; however, he dropped out during the first year. He completed a law degree at Université Laval in 1970 and later completed Master of Arts degree in History at McGill University. Black's thesis, later published as a biography, was on Quebec Premier, Maurice Duplessis.
Black became involved in a number of businesses, mainly publishing newspapers, but briefly in mining. In 1966 Black bought his first newspaper, the Eastern Townships Advertiser in Quebec.
Following the foundation, as an investment vehicle, of the Ravelston Corporation by the Black family in 1969, Black, together with friends David Radler and Peter G. White, purchased and operated the Sherbrooke Record, the small English language daily in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In 1971, the three formed Sterling Newspapers Limited, a holding company that would acquire several other small Canadian regional newspapers.
Following his father’s death in June 1976, Conrad and his older brother were bequeathed with a stake in a mining company called Hollinger, and a 22.4% stake in Ravelston Corp., which at the time owned 61% voting control of Argus Corporation, an influential holding company in Canada.
Early in his business career Conrad Black was taken under the wing of two prominent Canadian businessmen: John Angus "Bud" McDougald and E. P. Taylor, and following McDougald's death in 1978, Black acquired a controlling interest in the shareholdings of Argus.
On July 4 of the same year, Black paid $30-million to take control of Ravelston and voting control of Argus and its headquarters in Toronto. This controversial arrangement resulted in the widows of Argus Corp.'s McDougald and Eric Phillips (a daughter of Samuel McLaughlin, a founder of General Motors Canada) claiming that he had defrauded them.
At the time, Argus owned some of Canada's most prominent blue-chip companies, including Dominion Stores, Massey Ferguson and Hollinger Mines. Black resigned as Chairman of the struggling Massey Ferguson company in 1979. By 1981 Black was ranked 235 in the Sunday Times Rich List 2004, with an estimated wealth of £175m.
In 1984, Dominion Stores Ltd. withdrew over $56 million from the Dominion workers' pension plan surplus without consulting plan members. The firm said it considered the surplus the rightful property of the employer (Dominion Stores Ltd.). The Dominion Union complained, a public outcry ensued, and the case went to court.
The Supreme Court of Ontario eventually ruled against the company on this case, and ordered the company to return the money to the pension fund, claiming that though the most recent language in the plan suggested the employer had ownership of the surplus, the original intention was to keep the surplus in the plan to increase members' benefits. The company appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld the lower court's decision.
Black was approached in 1985 by Andrew Knight, then the editor of The Economist, and invited to make an investment in the ailing Telegraph Group. By buying into the Telegraph Group, Black made his entry into the British press. Five years following, he bought the Jerusalem Post, and subsequently fired the majority of its staff. By 1990, his companies ran over 400 newspaper titles in North America, the preponderance of them being small community papers.
Hollinger bought a minority stake in the Southam Newspaper Chain in 1993, the same year Black published his first autobiography, A Life in Progress , and acquired the Chicago Sun Times. Hollinger International shares were listed on New York Stock Exchange in 1996, at which time the company boosted its stake in Southam to a controlling position. Black then launched the National Post in Toronto in 1998, but sold his interest in 2001. From 1999 to 2000 Hollinger International also unloaded several newspapers in five deals worth a total of US$679-million, a total that included millions of dollars in "non-compete agreements" for Hollinger insiders.
Later that year, Hollinger International announced the sale of thirteen major Canadian newspapers, 126 community newspapers, Internet properties and half of the National Post to CanWest Global Communications Corporation. Hollinger International sold the rest of the National Post to CanWest in the summer of 2001. By October, fund-management company Tweedy Browne, which owns 12.7% of Hollinger shares, wrote to complain about Black's compensation and management fees paid to Ravelston. To reduce debt, Hollinger sold its 15% stake in CanWest for $271 million.
Despite Black's deep involvement in the media world, he retained a particular disdain for the press. Black was quoted as saying: "a substantial number of journalists are ignorant, lazy, opinionated and intellectually dishonest. The profession is heavily cluttered with aged hacks, toiling through a miasma of mounting decrepitude and often alcoholism." Upon arriving at court in Chicago in 2007, Black gave a finger salute to the media covering his trial.
Black also associated with Richard Perle, Joan Collins, and Princess Michael of Kent. Using his various media outlets, Black put forward his views on the Canadian establishment: he denounced the country's welfare system as "an overgenerous reinsurance policy for an under-achieving nation"; blamed brain drain on Canada's high taxes; attacked trade unions and derided liberal politicians. He was known for his amassed fortune and the lavish tastes it supported.
Having been born into an already wealthy family, Black purchased from his parents' estate assets such as the Georgian house he lived in, on seven acres of land in Toronto's Bridle Path neighbourhood. Black reportedly had additions constructed on the house, including a library with a copper cupola.
Black's critics, including former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore, suggested it was Black's second wife, Amiel, who pushed him towards a life of opulence, citing extravagant expenditures such as items billed to Hollinger expenses that included US$2,463 on handbags, $2,785 in opera tickets, and $140 for Amiel's "jogging attire." At the time of his fraud trial in 2007, Black was aware of the disdain much of the public held towards him because of his wealth, stating: "Since biblical times, and probably before, the wealthy have been envied and condemned."
Black's initial attempt to accept the British peerage, offered by Queen Elizabeth II on the advice of PM Tony Blair, was thwarted by the then Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien, who referred to the 1919 Nickle Resolution, by which the Canadian House of Commons resolved that the Canadian Monarch should not confer titular honours on Canadians.
Black attempted to work around the Canadian Prime Minister by taking dual British and Canadian citizenship, claiming that he would accept the peerage from the Queen as a British citizen rather than as a Canadian citizen.
After this proved unsuccessful, with Chrétien still asserting that Blair could not have the Queen give a titular honour to a Canadian, Black initiated a lawsuit against Chrétien, arguing that the Canadian Prime Minister's strict interpretation of the Nickle Resolution, which is not a law, was payback for Black's political opinions and past criticism of Chrétien. He lost the lawsuit on the first instance and on appeal, with the Court of Appeal for Ontario stating that the Prime Minister of Canada was within his constitutional rights to advise the Queen on the exercise of her Royal Prerogative. In 2001, Black gave up his Canadian citizenship.
He became a member of the Hurlingham Club, and was created a life peer as Baron Black of Crossharbour, of Crossharbour in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, where he sat as a member of the British Conservative Party until July 13, 2007, when he was denied the whip (effectively expelling him from the Conservative Party grouping in the House of Lords) as a result of his conviction. Black cannot be stripped of his peerage without an Act of British Parliament; however, the British government proposed in a recent White Paper that convicted criminals be stripped of their peerages, meaning Black could lose his title should he lose his appeal in the American courts, and should the government implement the proposal before the end of his prison term.
Even without his Canadian citizenship, Black continues to enjoy the privileges of membership in the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, to which he was appointed by Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn, on the advice of Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, in 1992, which includes the use of a special passport.
After an internal inquiry alleged that Black had received over $7 million in unauthorized payments of company funds, Hollinger International announced on 17 November 2003 that Black would resign as chief executive of Hollinger.
By 17 January the following year it was reported that the executive committee of the board of directors of Hollinger had also obtained Black's resignation as chairman. A special committee at Hollinger, investigating the unauthorized payments, filed a lawsuit in New York for the recovery of the money, and Hollinger International filed a $200 million (USD) lawsuit against Black.
On 15 November 2004, the SEC filed civil fraud lawsuits against Black and several others, and just over one year later, on 17 November, eleven criminal fraud charges were brought by U. S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald against Black and three former Hollinger executives; eight of the criminal fraud charges were against Black, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. After a hearing in late 2006, his bail was raised to $21 million (USD).
Fitzgerald laid four new federal charges against Black in Chicago on 15 December 2005, consisting of racketeering, obstruction of justice, money laundering and wire fraud. Under the racketeering count, Fitzgerald was seeking forfeiture of more than $92,000,000 (USD); the obstruction count related to a video that appears to show Black illegally removing more than a dozen boxes from the Toronto office of Hollinger Inc. Black returned the boxes about a week after the video had become public. Black's trial for criminal fraud commenced on 14 March 2007.
On 13 July 2007, a jury found Black guilty of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice, but acquitted him of the other nine charges, including wire fraud and racketeering. He faced a potential maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. His co-accused, Peter Y. Atkinson, John A. Boultbee and Mark Kipnis, were also found guilty. Judge Amy St. Eve sustained Black's US$21 million bail package. St. Eve said Black remained restricted to travel within the court's jurisdiction in Illinois, and to his Florida home. She said she would take under advisement his request to travel to Toronto. On 5 November 2007, Judge St. Eve denied Black's bid for a new trial.
On 10 December 2007, Judge St. Eve sentenced Black to 78 months in jail. Twelve weeks later, he lost a bid in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh District to remain free on bail while appealing his convictions. Black reported to Coleman Federal Correctional Complex near Orlando Florida on March 3 2008 to begin serving his sentence.
The Canadian government holds a lien against Black's Palm Beach property, currently designated part of his bail surety, for unpaid taxes; Black now owns only $8 million in equity and he defaulted on the mortgage in June, 2006.
