Among the findings of the Hollinger International Inc. special committee's investigation into the company since ousted chairman and chief executive Conrad M. Black took it public in 1994:
• Black and other controlling shareholders took more than $400 million of the company's money since 1997, a figure amounting to 95 percent of the company's entire adjusted net income during the period.
• Black's handpicked board of directors "functioned more like a social club" than overseers of a major corporation.
• The board's audit committee, which included former Illinois governor James R. Thompson and former U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard R. Burt, was "inert and ineffective," but was also misled by Black and F. David Radler, the chief operating officer.
• Director Richard N. Perle, a former adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, received more than $5.4 million in bonuses and compensation from a Hollinger subsidiary while he "breached his fiduciary duties" on the executive committee. The special panel recommended Perle be forced to pay it back.
