News Corp faces new US lawsuits
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is facing more trouble over the phonehacking controversy linked to the now defunct tabloid News of The World as British lawyer Mark Lewis, who represents a large number of hacking victims in the UK, has confirmed that he will launch legal action in three separate lawsuits in the United States.
Mr Lewis, who has been following the phone- hacking cases in the UK since 2007, said he would next week launch legal action on behalf of three unidentified clients — a “wellknown sports person,” a sports person not in the public eye and an American citizen — who believe their phones were hacked while they were in the United States.
Mr Lewis told the BBC that legal action over phone hacking had moved outside the United Kingdom for the first time. “The scandal, as it is, is not just then confined to the United Kingdom or to the United Kingdom companies like News International and News Group Newspapers. This goes to the heartland of News Corporation and we’ll be looking at the involvement of the parent company in terms of claims there and that is something that will be taken more seriously by perhaps the investors and shareholders in News Corporation,” he said.
Mr Lewis, of Taylor Hampton law firm, had last year announced his plans to file a US class action against News Corp, the parent company of News International that owned News of The World tabloid, over phone- hacking allegations and police bribery claims.
The details about the US action have been revealed as the police watchdog in its inquiry report, released on Thursday, pulled up senior Scotland Yard officers over their links with the now defunct Sunday tabloid.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission said “professional boundaries became blurred, imprudent decisions taken and poor judgement shown” over the relationship between the Metropolitan Police Service and Neil Wallis, a former senior executive at the News of the World.