Hollinger International has blamed the excessive lifestyle of Lord Conrad Black and his wife Lady Barbara Amiel Black for the alleged fraud at the newspaper publishing group the Canadian-born peer built and controlled.

A report of more than 500 pages by a special committee of Hollinger's board also faulted the elite group of political and financial luminaries who made up the company's board for their failure to control the company's most senior executives.

The release of the highly-anticipated report into the alleged fraud followed a 14-month investigation by a special committee of the group's board.

The report provided investors and observers of Lord Black's crumbling career as a media tycoon with new details about how the former Hollinger chairman and a long-time colleague, Mr David Radler, allegedly colluded to steal $400 million (€328.5 million) from Hollinger's coffers - or 95 per cent of the company's adjusted net income from 1997-2003. The allegations range from relatively minor examples of misusing company funds - including charging Hollinger $42,870 for Lady Black's birthday party in New York - to large scale allegations of fraud and tax avoidance.

The report concluded that executives were wrongfully paid nearly $200 million in "unjustifiable" management fees, even as Hollinger was underperforming against media peers.

Lord Black yesterday defended his record vigorously. He yesterday accused Richard Breeden - the former chairman of the SEC who led the internal probe - of "squandering" more than $25 million of shareholders' money on the investigation and "eroding the value" of Hollinger's assets.

Ms Laura Jereski, an analyst at Tweedy Browne, the company's largest institutional investor, yesterday said the report was "a step in the right direction", though the group still had "a long way to go" before reaching a resolution satisfactory to all shareholders.