Murdoch’s News Corp wants to resolve a long lawsuit with Prince Harry

The London Trial Against Murdoch’s Tabloids: Opening Arguments in the May 24th News UK Competition & Investigation of a Phone-Hacker Case

LONDON — Opening arguments are set to start Tuesday in a trial over complaints filed by Prince Harry and a senior British lawmaker against Rupert Murdoch’s London tabloid newspapers. It carries high stakes on both sides of the Atlantic.

The judge overseeing the case was the same one who presided over the case against the Mirror Group. The court in that case ruled that phone-hacking by the news company was “widespread and habitual” in the 1990s and early 2000s and that executives not only knew about it — but tried to cover it up. The judge said Harry’s cell phone was specifically targeted between 2003 and 2009.

“I’m the last person who can actually achieve that, and also closure for these 1,300 people and families,” Harry recently told The New York Times. I will be damned if those journalists will ruin journalism for everyone.

The hacking scandal in the UK has had many people involved, from the royal family to politicians and even crime victims. News UK has paid more than $1.5 billion to settle more than 1,300 complaints against the Sunday paper News of the World and the daily tabloid The Sun. In July of 2011, Murdoch apologized and closed News of the World.

The claims of 1,300 people and families who have received settlements were kept out of a trial and public view, because the prince said they were to people who have received settlements. Of the 40 complainants that were initially part of this litigation, all but the prince and the lawmaker have settled.

Beyond members of the royal family and prominent politicians, those targeted included famous actors, singers, sports stars, war dead and the victims of crime and terrorism.

Murdoch vs Fox News: The Final Two Claims About News UK and the Avatars of the Independent Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Lewis was accused of lying to investigators and hiding evidence, as well as trying to ruin the reputation of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Watson had been a leading critic of the Murdochs in Parliament.

While not a defendant, Lewis is cited as participating in efforts to destroy evidence showing News UK’s leaders knew about the crimes their employees were committing on the tabloids’ behalf. The former IT director of News UK who has since risen to be a chief technology officer at Murdoch’s New York City based Fox Corporation is also a member of Harry andWatson’s legal team. He refused to speak through a corporate spokesman, so he directed all inquiries to News UK.

“This is about the power of people who are still very powerful and their abuses — and whether they are held to account for it,” says Chris Huhne, a former British Cabinet minister who also sued Murdoch’s British newspaper company, News UK, claiming it hacked into his private voice messages. In December 2023, he dropped the suit after the company paid him a six-figure settlement and covered his legal costs.

News UK said last year that its settlements, past parliamentary and judicial inquiries and decision by the crown prosecution service not to press criminal charges against the company supports its contention that it has acted in good faith. The company believes this chapter must be closed, so it is drawing a line. The cases from Prince Harry and Watson, now serving in the House of Lords as Baron Watson of Wyre Forest, represent the final two claims.

The case represents the apex and potential conclusion of a rolling scandal that began a generation ago. New allegations of wrongdoing have led to more litigation, and News UK held that it was the fault of a few bad actors.

Murdoch is the proprietor of major papers in England and the US, including the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London and the New York Post. Murdoch’s success with his London papers, including the Sunday News of the World, allowed him to extend his reach around the world.

The last-gasp settlement offer evoked Murdoch’s decision two years ago to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit against Fox News for broadcasting lies about the 2020 elections. Murdoch’s team made the offer on the cusp of trial — and of the nonagenarian media titan’s own testimony in open court. In the case, Fox admitted that there were incorrect claims, but they were able to reveal the size of the settlement.

Murdoch hired Lewis away from the Telegraph Media Group as an executive in 2010 and he soon took on highly sensitive tasks. The media baron assigned Lewis and one of Lewis’s close friends to cooperate with Scotland Yard in its investigation of alleged criminality at his tabloids. Several journalists and investigators pleaded guilty to breaking the law. A former editor of News of the World was convicted of conspiracy to hack phones and sentenced to nearly five months in prison.

Records submitted in lawsuits against News UK show that police questioned Lewis and chief tech officer Paul Cheesbrough in July 2011 about the deletion six months earlier of millions of emails, which plaintiffs suspected held evidence of the crimes.

“We got a warning from a source that a current member of staff had got access to Rebekah’s emails and had passed them to Tom WATSON,” Lewis said, according to police notes of that meeting later revealed in court. A source said the emails had been passed by a former member of staff and that it was controlled by Gordon Brown. This made us feel more anxious.

Scotland Yard should open a new criminal investigation of News UK over the allegation, according to Brown. Bezos should rethink whether Lewis is the best person to lead the Washington Post, he told NPR. An elite unit of investigators has begun a preliminary review, but police have not said whether they will broaden it into a full investigation.

Murdoch vs. The Sun: Investigating Public Investigations of the Murdoch Lawmaker’s Newspaper Branches after the News UK Closure

Under British law, a plaintiff suing in a civil case can be forced to pay the defendant’s legal costs if he or she turns down a settlement offer that exceeds the amount of the judgment awarded at trial. The size of damages are often far lower than in the U.S. The actor Hugh Grant was willing to take an “enormous sum of money” from News UK to resolve his case. He said he would have had to pay a 10 million pound bill for the company’s legal fees.

NPR was the first to break the news of the offer, disclosed by a person who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the case directly. A spokesperson for News UK, Murdoch’s British newspaper company, declined comment, as did a lawyer for Harry and the lawmaker, former member of the House of Commons Tom Watson.

The presiding judge, Justice Timothy Fancourt, pressured the parties to decide on the offer Tuesday, saying he expected the trial to begin that afternoon. He rebuked one of Murdoch’s attorneys for asking to be heard in closed chambers to make his case privately.

Even in reaching past settlements over the years, News UK has never admitted culpability for criminal activity by The Sun. Murdoch expanded the paper to seven days a week after closing News of the World in the previous year.

Through a spokesperson, Lewis and the Post declined to comment. An aide to Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, did not respond to a request for comment.

Harry and Watson’s allegations also focus on the actions of News UK CEO Rebekah Brooks, the former top editor of both the News of the World and The Sun. She had been the chief executive of News UK in 2011, but resigned that summer. After she was acquitted of phone hacking charges, she returned to Murdoch’s newspaper arm here.

The settlement would enable the Murdoch camp to quash the public presentation of evidence by Harry and Watson’s legal team —evidence meant to show that the Murdoch daily tabloid the Sun also engaged in widespread criminality in its reporting methods.

Brown andWatson deny that there is a plot, but News UK hasn’t provided proof of the existence of it. Brown has demanded a criminal investigation from Scotland Yard, which opened a preliminary review to determine whether a full investigation is warranted.

Source: Murdoch’s News Corp offers Prince Harry settlement to resolve years-long lawsuit

Murdoch’s tale of the king and the prince: a lawsuit against the Murdoch co-editors at the Times of London

Prince Harry and a senior lawmaker were offered a large amount of money to not go to trial over whether company executives had covered up illegal actions at Murdoch’s tabloids.