In accounts filed yesterday, Hollinger revealed it spent $17.3m in the third quarter alone on its probe of former chairman and chief executive Lord Black.
In a filing to the Securities & Exchange Commission in New York, Hollinger said it had spent a total of $46.3m in the nine months of 2004 and a further $9.8m last year, bringing the total to just over $56m.
The majority of the spending has been on lawyers working for a special committee of the board of directors, after shareholders approved the launch of the probe in June 2003.
Lord Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel, have been accused of looting Hollinger International to fund a luxury lifestyle. Lord Black is accused of using Hollinger International as a "piggybank" to pay for private jets, club memberships and cars, driven by what has been described as an "insatiable demands for cash from Black".
Hollinger, which still owns the Chicago Sun-Times and the Jerusalem Post, is seeking damages of $542m from Lord Black and other former executives after revising an earlier lawsuit that was seeking $1.25bn.
The legal wastage has been condemned by Lord Black's company Ravelston Corp.
"This process is now costing the company and its shareholders more than 1m dollars a week. We believe that other Hollinger International shareholders and directors should now appreciate the true nature of this outrageous process and should be as appalled by it as we are," Ravelston Corp said in a statement.
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