Conrad Black receives a 78-month jail sentence

Personal relationships and family

Conrad Black was born in Montreal to a wealthy family originally from Winnipeg. His father, George Montegu Black, Jr., was the president of Canadian Breweries, an international brewing conglomerate which earlier had absorbed Winnipeg Breweries, which was founded by George Black Sr. Conrad Black's mother was the former Jean Elizabeth Riley, a daughter of Conrad Stephenson Riley (whose father founded the Great-West Life Assurance Company), and a great-granddaughter of an early co-owner of the Daily Telegraph.

Black's first marriage was to Joanna (born Shirley) Hishon of Montreal, who worked as a secretary in his brother Montegu's brokerage office. The couple had two sons, Jonathan-David Conrad and James Patrick Leonard Black, and a daughter, Alana Whitney Elizabeth Black.[3] The couple separated in 1991. The Black divorce was finalized in 1992; the same year Black married Watford-born journalist Barbara Amiel. It was said that marriage to Amiel affirmed Black's position in the British glamour set. Black flattered Amiel, describing her variously as "beautiful, brilliant, ideologically a robust spirit" and "chic, humorous and preternaturally sexy." Courtroom evidence revealed that the couple exchanged over 11,000 emails.[4]

[edit] Early life and career

Black, described as "a bookish, clumsy youth,"[citation needed] was first educated at Upper Canada College (UCC), during which time, at age 8, he purchased shares in General Motors.[4] 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 behavior. Black eventually graduated from a small, now defunct private school in Toronto called Thornton Hall, continuing on to post-secondary education at Carleton University (History, 1965). For a time, he attended Toronto's Osgoode Hall Law School of York University; however, he dropped out during his first year of study. He eventually completed his law degree at Université Laval (Law, 1970), later completing a Master of Arts degree in history at McGill University in 1973.[5] Black's thesis, later published as a biography, was on Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis. Biographer George Toombs said of Black's motivations: "he was born into a very large family of athletic, handsome people. He wasn't particularly athletic or handsome like they were, so he developed a different skill - wordplay, which he practised a lot with his father."[4]

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.

[edit] Corporate ownership through holding companies

George Black died in June 1976, leaving Conrad and his older brother, Montegu, a stake in a mining company called Hollinger, and a 22.4% stake in Ravelston Corp., which by then 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 at 10 Toronto Street 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, Hollinger Mines. Black resigned as Chairman of the struggling Massey Ferguson company in 1979, after which Argus divested its shares to the employee union.[6] Hollinger Mines was then turned into a holding company.

In 1981 Norcen Energy, one of his companies, acquired a minority position in Ohio-based Hanna Mining Co. A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stated that Norcen took "an investment position" in Hanna. However, the filing failed to disclose that Norcen's board planned to seek majority control. Black subsequently was charged by the SEC with filing misleading public statements, charges that were later withdrawn by "consent decree" after Black and Norcen agreed not to break securities laws in the future.

Black was ranked 235th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2004, with an estimated wealth of £175m. Despite his success, it was reported in Vanity Fair magazine that Black always carried a vomit bag with him due to the possible onset of frequent anxiety attacks.[4]

[edit] Dominion pension dispute

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.[7] The company appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld the lower court's decision.[8]

[edit] Black's allegations of libel

In 1983, Black sued U.S. society magazine Town & Country over an allegedly defamatory article by Canadian journalist and Black biographer Peter C. Newman. However, the case was not tested in a courtroom.

In 1990, the Canadian division of Penguin Books agreed to destroy 6,200 copies of Whose Money Is It Anyway?, after Black started a libel suit over passages about the Dominion pensions dispute.