“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Marx said it. Now it’s safe to say Conrad Black et al. are living it.

Bloomberg reports:

Sun-Times Media Group Inc., publisher of newspapers in the Chicago area, sued former chairman Conrad Black and three associates to recover some of more than $60 million it paid in legal fees to defend them…. The complaint won’t affect legal fees for civil lawsuits in which the four are named. Sun-Times ‘will continue to advance reasonable fees and expenses’ in connection with civil proceedings, according to the complaint.

Sun-Times spokeswoman Tammy Chase said in a statement, ‘Our lawsuit speaks for itself.’ She declined to comment further.

Meantime, that same Sun-Times Media Group Inc.—the successor company to Hollinger International—continues its months of ferocious cost-cutting and has put its remaining assets on the auction block. Presumably, this is an attempt to raise sufficient lucre to fund its latest corporate incarnation as a litigation machine. That is, a litigation machine aiming to extract recompense from the very men who managed the company into this mess in the first place. And all the while paying their continuing legal fees.

Ain’t capitalism grand?

Sun-Times Sues Black, Associates, for $60 Million (Update1): Source [Bloomberg]Black’s old Chicago paper on the blocks: Source [The Guardian]