Hollinger International, owner of The Daily Telegraph, published yesterday an amended $1.25 billion lawsuit against Lord Black of Crossharbour, his wife, Barbara Amiel, and some of their business associates for alleged misuse of company funds. It claims that “the Black group used Hollinger as a cash cow to be milked of every possible drop of cash”.

The lawsuit claims that between 1997 and 2003 the Tory peer and his associates diverted 72 per cent of the publishers’ income to themselves. Lord Black has denied any wrong-doing.

The action claims that the media group was billed for $90,000 to refurbish a 1958 Silver Wraith Rolls-Royce “apparently so that Black and Amiel-Black could travel London in classic style without paying for the ride”. The Blacks are also said to have billed Hollinger for household staff — including chefs, senior butlers, butlers, under-butlers, chauffeurs and footmen. In August 2002, Lord Black sent an e-mail to a shareholder of a company he controlled, on the subject of the jets. “There has not been an occasion for many months when I got on our plane without wondering whether it was really affordable,” he said. “But I’m not prepared to re-enact the French Revolutionary renunciation of the rights of nobility.”

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