KEY POINTS:
CHICAGO - Two Canadian executives on trial with fallen media magnate Conrad Black arranged to pay themselves US$2.6 million ($3.57 million) in bonuses in one deal as Black disassembled his newspaper empire, a lawyer told jurors yesterday.
The final draft of a newspaper sales agreement in 2000 designated US$1.3 million apiece to co-defendants Peter Atkinson, a former vice president at Toronto-based Hollinger, and former Hollinger chief financial officer Jack Boultbee, Darren Sukonick of Canadian law firm Torys testified.
Asked earlier by prosecutors about Hollinger International's sale of US newspapers, Sukonick said he was "surprised and curious" that non-compete payments were not being disclosed in sales agreements.
- REUTERS
