phone hacking scandal

LONDON (AP) — Former CNN host Piers Morgan was questioned for a second time by British police Tuesday about tabloid phone hacking. Morgan, who edited Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper between […]

Rupert Murdoch can breath a large sigh of relief at the dissipation of a major legal threat hanging over his corporate empire. In a filing with federal securities regulators, his companies have disclosed that the U.S. Justice Department has decided not to prosecute them for possible violations of U.S. federal law. The federal investigation stemmed from the phone hacking scandal that consumed his British tabloids. A prosecution could have complicated the ability of 21st Century Fox to maintain control of its 28 U.S. television stations.

More than a year after asking for and receiving emails from News Corp.’s U.S. operation related to allegations of phone hacking and bribery, the FBI still is investigating whether British-based representatives of the media company may have broken U.S. law, according to sources familiar with the matter. Sources say the FBI probe has not ended even though some former senior aides to Rupert Murdoch were acquitted of charges by a British criminal court jury.

The final cost of the News of the World hacking scandal could rise to 1 billion pounds ($161.6 billion), according to a private assessment made by former News International CEO Tom Mockridge. He also warned that without the deep pockets of News International (now News UK) parent company News Corp, The Sun, Times and Sunday Times would all have been put out of business by the hacking scandal.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch will accept an invitation to appear before a committee of the British Parliament to discuss taped comments he made about a police investigation into journalists’ phone hacking and alleged illicit payments to British authorities. Murdoch’s comments, secretly recorded during his visit to the News Corp.-owned Sun tabloid in March, have exploded into a controversy over whether the press baron was condoning the payments to officials by suggesting such behavior was part of the “culture of Fleet Street.”

Rupert Murdoch belittled a British police inquiry into bribes allegedly paid by his journalists in a secret recording made by his staff, in sharp contrast to the profuse public apologies he made to defuse anger at newsgathering practices.

Rebekah Brooks appeared in court on today and denied five counts relating to Britain’s phone hacking scandal, which forced the closing of one of its biggest tabloids.

The Media Bureau says that that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington did not supply the proof the agency needs to pursue a character-qualification case against a U.S. station licensee. CREW claimed that News Corp.-owned Fox “lacks the requisite character to hold broadcast licenses here in the United States” due to the parent company’s phone-hacking scandal in the United Kingdom.

The insurers backing News Corp.’s board will pay the company $139 million shareholder lawsuits over the British phone hacking scandal. The cash, after subtracting fees for the plaintiffs’ lawyers, will benefit shareholders indirectly by going into the company’s coffers.

LONDON (AP) — British politicians said Monday they struck a last-minute deal over press regulation, unveiling a new code meant to curb the worst abuses of the country’s scandal-tarred media. […]

The arrest of six more journalists from the shuttered News of the World suggests a new line in the phone-hacking investigation—and a whole new world of pain for Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch want an American class action lawsuit against them and News International over the U.K. phone hacking scandal dismissed. Not because they may have acted badly but, in a motion filed late last week, because they believe they didn’t break the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Services said Tuesday that former tabloid editors Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks were among five people being charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.

It seeks to have a lawsuit filed by company shareholders thrown out. The shareholders say the company ignored several red flags about the extent of the hacking, dating back several years, and failed to act until the scandal exploded last year. News Corp. says the plaintiffs had not met the standards under Delaware law for bringing the lawsuit or demonstrated that the board acted in bad faith.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics says the British phone-hacking scandel shows that the News Corp. subsidiary “lacks the requisite character to hold broadcast licenses here in the United States.’ The stations involved are WTTG-WDCA Washington and WUTB Baltimore.’

LONDON (AP) — The Church of England says it has sold its shareholding in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. because of findings that the media giant was involved in phone hacking. […]

British prosecutors are evaluating whether to bring charges against News Corp.‘s  London-based publishing unit in connection with the phone-hacking scandal, according to a person familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Eight people, including former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, will face a total of 19 charges relating to phone hacking.

A year ago Wednesday, the world was shocked by that headline in the Guardian. It was the headline that turned Rupert Murdoch’s phone hacking scandal from a local irritant to an international catastrophe, and kicked off a crisis that has shown no signs of slowing down.

Testifying at Britain’s long-running inquiry into media standards, Prime Minister David Cameron rejected suggestions that he traded policies favorable to Rupert Murdoch for electoral support from Murdoch’s newspapers.

News Corp. lawyer Michael Silverleaf told a court hearing Friday that “we are dealing with 500 claims, potentially” from people who say their voicemail messages were intercepted by the now-defunct News of the World.

BBC quiz show host and television news presenter Jeremy Paxman told a media ethics inquiry that current CNN host Piers Morgan, then editor of Britain’s The Mirror, told him how to change phone security settings to listen to messages.

Rebekah Brooks, a close confidante of Rupert Murdoch, was charged on Tuesday with interfering with a police investigation into a phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the tycoon’s News Corp. media empire and sent shockwaves through the British political establishment.

Operation Elveden, the investigation into allegations that News Corp. reporters bribed police, Army and defense ministry officials to get scoops, has more potential to upend News Corp. than the more sensational phone hacking scandal.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski testified Wednesday that his agency takes calls to cancel Fox’s broadcast licenses “very seriously.” During a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Frank Lautenberg pressed Genachowski on whether he plans to do anything about the allegations. Genachowski said it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment on a specific case, but that the commission is “certainly aware of the serious issues that have been raised in the U.K.”

News Corp. spent $63 million on hacking-related costs in the quarter ending March 31; overall in the first nine months of fiscal 2012, costs related to the ongoing investigations dating back to the closure of The News of the World last summer have run to $167 million.

Rupert Murdoch faces limited risk of losing News Corp.’s U.S. broadcast TV station licenses, even amid screaming headlines in Britain that the media mogul is unfit to run a major company.

From William Randolph Hearst to Rupert Murdoch, many media barons’ stories follow a familiar arc. “He’s one of a series,” said James Curran, a professor of communications at Goldsmiths University in London. “He seems to me to be in the same press baron tradition.”

A U.K. parliamentary committee’s searing indictment of Rupert Murdoch on Tuesday may trigger legal headaches for him in the United States and spur opposition to the renewal of News Corp.’s television licenses, according to legal experts.

The UK parliamentary committee’s report into whether it was misled over phone hacking makes conclusions including: “Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.”

The 81-year-old media magnate apologized today before a U.K. panel for the British phone-hacking scandal. He noted that the corporate cleanup that followed had cost his New York-based News Corp. hundreds of millions of dollars and transformed its culture.”I failed, and I’m sorry about it,” Murdoch said.

Speaking before an inquiry on Wednesday, the News Corp. chief, Rupert Murdoch, sought to deflect suggestions that he wielded influence with British officials to further his corporate interests.

The News Corp. chairman is testifying today before the inquiry set up following a phone hacking scandal at one of News Corp.’s British newspapers.

A British parliamentary report into a phone hacking scandal may lead eventually to News Corp. being forced into cutting or selling its stake in the highly profitable pay-TV firm BSkyB, having already dropped its bid to buy it outright last year.

Fleet Street lawyer Mark Lewis says he plans to file three separate lawsuits against Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. on behalf of clients who believe their phones were hacked while they were on U.S. soil.

Britain’s hacking scandal spilled into television as Sky News, whose parent company is controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said a reporter had accessed e-mails.

Murdoch is under pressure over his role in Britain’s tabloid phone hacking scandal and said in a letter to the board today that he was resigning so that “the interests of BSkyB should not be undermined by matters outside the scope of this company.” He will stay on as a member of the broadcaster’s board.

Former News International executive Rebekah Brooks and her racehorse trainer husband Charlie were arrested Tuesday in dawn raids that also netted four other suspects in the spreading phone hacking scandal.

News Corp. said today that James, the youngest son of 80-year-old media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has relinquished his position at News International to concentrate on expanding the company’s television business. The 39-year-old James will still remain deputy chief operating officer of News Corp. but the move plucks the one-time heir apparent to his father’s global empire away from a firestorm over his credibility and his role in Britain’s expanding phone-hacking scandal.

News Corp. is dealing with the fallout of the British tabloid phone-hacking scandal. The company’s global affairs will be led by Michael Regan, executive vice president for government affairs and head of its Washington operations.