Crazed fanboy that I am, I’ve been avidly reading Mark Steyn’s dispatches from the Conrad Black trial, but even if you don’t trust men with beards or Canadians, it’s still worth giving this case a second look. It might just be that Patrick Fitzgerald has managed the near-inpossible and found a prosecution sleazier than the judicial lynching of Scooter Libby.

What it’s all about is the sale of certain assets by Black’s company Hollinger and the presence of ‘non-compete’ clauses in certain of the contracts which involved……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Well, OK, let’s skip the specifics and get straight to the point. The contracts under dispute were between private companies and raised not an eyebrow at the time. It was only years after the fact that anyone realised there’d been a really huge robbery - and only then with a certain degree of persuasion from the Feds.

Indeed, one of the most striking features of the case is just how many of the prosecution witnesses have the government breathing down their neck. Chief prosecution witness David Radler’s plea bargain with the government is dependant on him giving a good performance in court, the SEC has been making noises about taking action against former members of the Audit Committee, while Darren Sukonick, lawyer for Hollinger at Canadian Law Firm Torys testified as a condition of a deal to get them off the hook of civil action. But what about the shareholders, the supposed victims in all of this ? Nada! The US government hasn’t yet managed to get any on the stand to testify how evil Black et al are.

Not only is this a case without any identifiable victims, it’s not even clear what the prosecution is arguing. Was Black the centre of an evil conspiracy, or did he just turn a blind eye to one in return for cash ? Don’t ask the Feds, they can’t seem to decide, their main argument seems to be: who cares what they actually did, they’re rich and obnoxious, convict them anyway!

If this sounds weak, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Amongst the charges are claims that Black robbed his company by charging two thirds of the cost of his wife’s birthday party to Hollinger, which seems open and shut, until you realise it was a bash attended by a large chunk of the New York business community - I doubt Donald Trump was there to do the catering.

All of which is by way of saying that there was surely some business component to the party. Maybe - for the sake of the US government’s absurd argument - it was more like 1/2, rather than 2/3, is it really the role of the US Government to look for buffet abuse ? Similarly, should prosecutors be allowed to strong arm witnesses years after the fact, and present juries with multiple choice cases ?

At the end of the day, it’s hard to feel too much sympathy for the super-rich, but this case raises issues that no amount of Federal Prosecutors yuckking it up over heated towel rails can distract from. Steyn makes the point that the post-Black regime has managed to spend far more money on ‘corporate governance’ and the like than was ever in dispute in this current case. Why not ? With Pat Fitzgerald hiding under the buffet table counting the number of guests, who wouldn’t feel the need to have the auditors wandering round carefully recording whether conversations are business or pleasure ?

Whether or not Black and pals acted wisely or well, the prospect of government prosecutors trawling through every business deal should worry everyone. At best, it holds out the prospect of ever more money flowing down the ‘corporate governance’ hole, as corporations employ the business equivalent of defensive medicine. At worst, well, we’re back with Scooter Libby, and nominally private businesses at the mercy of politically-motivated prosecutors - but at least we’ll be free of the threat of tycoons charging the vol au vonts to the company.

Said DJ @ 5:46 pm | Permalink   

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