LAWFUEL – The Financial Times reports that Conrad Black and his wife decorated their New York apartment with lavish furnishings ranging from Louis XVI stools to a shaving table used by Napoleon during his invasion of Russia, jurors in his fraud trial were told on Monday.
Details of the lifestyle enjoyed by Lord Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel, have emerged as a key issue at the trial of the former newspaper proprietor and three former associates.
Prosecutors have alleged that the former Hollinger chief executive paid the company a below-market price for the New York apartment that he shared with his wife.
But Lord Black’s team has argued that the price paid to the company was offset by renovations, which were made under an agreement between the executive and Hollinger to leave the flat in an “appropriate habitable condition”.
Items paid for by Lord Black included $17,710 white marble reliefs of elephants, which the couple bought from Christie’s; Louis XVI painted rectangular stools with rails carved in a Guilloche pattern; and a $12,500 mahogany barbiere, with porcelain bowl, that belonged to Napoleon during his Russian campaign.
