Canadian Court Freezes Conrad Black's Assets Worldwide

By: E&P Staff A Canadian court has frozen all the assets of disgraced newspaper mogul Conrad Black, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday.

Staff reporter Eric Herman, citing two unidentified sources "familiar with the matter," wrote that Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin Campbell last week entered a "Mareva order" under seal in a lawsuit brought by Hollinger Inc., the Toronto-based holding company he once used to control a worldwide empire of newspapers.

A Mareva order is effective internationally, allowing creditors to assert claims on assets in courts around the world, and preventing the named defendant from spending or hiding funds. Under the order, Black -- who has lived a high-spending lifestyle -- would need the court's permission to make expenditures, according to the Sun-Times.

The order also freezes the assets of Black's wife, the columnist Barbara Amiel Black. Earlier this summer in a court hearing in Chicago on the separate criminal fraud case against Black and other key Hollinger executives, U.S. prosecutors said Barbara Amiel Black has loaned Black substantial sums of money.

Black declined to comment on the order, the Sun-Times reported.

"There are matters under discussion. I won't talk about it," he said Tuesday. "It's a fluid situation."

Hollinger Inc. sued Black in Canada in July, alleging damages of nearly $700 million. Hollinger International, the Chicago Sun-Times publishing company that he once controlled, is also suing him, alleging he looted the company of some $400 million in improper fees from newspaper sales and other fraudulent schemes.

U.S. authorities have accused Black and others of mail fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and other felonies in connection to what they say was the theft of more than $80 million from Hollinger International, now known as Sun-Times Media Group. Black's lieutenant, former Sun-Times Publisher David Radler has pleaded guilty to a single charge and agreed to testify against Black and others in a plea bargain for a reduced sentence. Black and the others have pleaded not guilty, and are scheduled to go on trial next March.

Black is free on $21 million bail, which is secured mainly by a lien on his mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., plus other assets. At the July hearing, in which prosecutors asked for a higher bond, Black's Chicago lawyer, Ed Genson, told U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve that the former mogul "does not have any liquidity."

St. Eve, reading from an accounting statement submitted by the defense, said Black has a monthly bills of $114,000 a month on the mortgage for his Toronto home, $8,000 for property taxes, and $9,000 for his gardener.

"Where's that (money) coming from?" St. Eve said. "He has well over $200,000 at a quick glance, and that doesn't include the Palm Beach expenses. How is he paying such monthly expenses?"

Genson said then Black has been using some money from a settlement of a payment dispute with his former attorneys.