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“We have pretty well won the battle against the non-compete payments and a decent interval has passed,” Black wrote. “A conciliatory gesture should be made now that could not be construed as a sign of weakness or a confession of excess.” Excess is in the eye of the beholder, and nothing Black beheld troubled him. “These companies [Hollinger International, the holding company Hollinger Inc., and Ravelston, the private firm that controlled Hollinger Inc.] have always been run [as] proprietary businesses where the controlling shareholders take reasonable steps to ensure their comfortable enjoyment of the position they (we, in fact) have created for themselves. Care must be taken not to allow this to degenerate into decadence. . . . But nor should we allow the agitations of shareholders, amplified by certain of our colleagues discountenanced at the performance of their stock options, to force us into a hair shirt, the corporate equivalent of sackcloth and ashes. . . . We have a certain style that all these shareholders were aware of when they came in . . .”
Radler’s cross-examination began this week. Black’s frumpy Canadian attorney, Edward Greenspan, is a little too enamored of his own legendary wiles. He immediately brought up a trial in Canada Radler had testified at. “You swore to God to tell the truth,” Greenspan said. “I swore to tell the truth,” Radler answered.
“No, I don’t remember,” said Radler. Greenspan was astonished. “That’s a big deal, isn’t it?”
Radler didn’t want to go there.
“That doesn’t mean nobody would call me that,” Radler said.
