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No one in court was accusing Thompson of dishonesty as the board of director’s fiscal watchdog, but no one was accusing him of competence either. Black and Radler were charged with pocketing millions of dollars — in noncompete payments — that should have gone to shareholders when Hollinger began selling off papers in the late 90s. Thompson testified that his committee often didn’t approve these payments and didn’t even know about them. But sometimes Thompson’s committee did know, or should have known, or at the very least their noses should have twitched. Thompson said in direct testimony that he usually “skimmed” the financial documents Hollinger sent him. But Black’s attorney, Edward Greenspan, later showed Thompson a Hollinger filing to the SEC in 2002 that reported that Black, Radler, and other indicted execs had received a total of $15.6 million from noncompete agreements over the previous two years. The filing was 17 pages long and Thompson had signed it. When he “skimmed” the text he’d missed the reference.
“No,” Thompson replied stiffly, “they paid me for other things.”
On redirect Thursday, federal prosecutor Eric Sussman gave Thompson a chance to assert that whatever Hollinger filings to the SEC might have said to the contrary, he didn’t know about and never approved the noncompetes. But then he had to face Greenspan again, who got him to concede that, yes, he’d signed his name to financial statements containing language he hadn’t read and that no doubt his signature persuaded other board members to sign them too.
