News Corporation, still battling phone-hacking charges leveled against its British newspapers, has launched a review of its anti-corruption controls in place in London and elsewhere, The Guardian reports.
The “forward-looking review” is “not based on any suspicion of wrongdoing by any particular business unit or its personnel,” News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch said in a memo to staff. Rather, it’s intended to test the controls currently in place and assess their effectiveness.
“As you are all aware, our company has been under intense scrutiny in the United Kingdom. I assured parliament and the Leveson inquiry that we would move quickly and aggressively to redress wrongdoing, co-operate with law enforcement officials and strengthen our compliance and ethics program company-wide. With the support of our board of directors, I am pleased to tell you that we have made progress on each of these important steps,” Murdoch added in the memo, according to The Guardian.
The “scrutiny” Murdoch refers to includes charges that the defunct News of the World tabloid allegedly hacked into a teenage murder victim’s cell phone, as well as British celebrities and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Dozens have been arrested on the suspicion of phone hacking.
As The Guardian reports, the company’s internal corruption probe began last July, and intensified when News International — the company’s British publishing unit — named Imogen Haddon its chief compliance officer in March.
David Taintor
David Taintor is TPM’s News Editor. He contributes to TPM’s Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
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