Breaking from Live Trading News:
Global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch was ordered Thursday to appear before a British judicial inquiry into the activities of the British press.
Mr. Murdoch, 81 anni, is set to appear before the Leveson Inquiry, chaired by senior British Judge Lord Leveson, on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
His youngest son James Murdoch, 39 anni, is also set to appear before the inquiry, Tuesday.
http://www.livetradingnews.com/...
More after the jump...
This development coincides with 46 new hacking cases opened in the UK. From the Guardian:
The number of new civil claims for damages over alleged News of the World phone hacking faced by Rupert Murdoch's News International has reached nearly 50, including Sir John Major's former daughter-in-law Emma Noble, the high court has heard.
Others seeking damages for alleged invasion of privacy from News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that published the now-closed Sunday tabloid, include former Conservative cabinet minister and chief whip Lord Blencathra and former Fire Brigades' Union general secretary Andy Gilchrist.
At a case management conference at the high court in London on Friday, Hugh Tomlinson, QC, representing victims of alleged phone hacking, told Mr Justice Vos that he had 44 new cases filed while two others had submitted their claims via another legal representative.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
What's more, Labor M.P. Tom Watson's book, DIAL M FOR MURDOCH, was published yesterday, and it contains some staggering allegations. From Journalism.co.uk:
News of the World journalists "raked over" the private lives of MPs investigating alleged phone hacking and put one of its most vocal members, Tom Watson, under surveillance, a new book on the hacking scandal has claimed.
Dial M for Murdoch, which was published yesterday by Watson and Independent journalist Martin Hickman, describes the alle pressure placed on the culture, media and sport select committee and its members by News International to back away from the hacking investigation.
The book claims that the News of the World "established a team" of reporters who "searched for any secret lovers or extra-marital affairs that could be used as leverage against the MPs" - and that "the MPs had no knowledge of what NI was doing behind their backs".
http://www.journalism.co.uk/...
We may have reached critical mass in terms of scrutiny of News Corp.'s crimes. UK lawyer Mark Lewis has added a fourth plaintiff to bring hacking charges here in the USA. As Brit would say, "things are hotting up".
Please support his book, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF MURDOCH, due out in June, here:
http://unbound.co.uk/...
UPDATE 1: I just found this barn-burner of a development in the Guardian (and h/t ceebs)
(excerpt)
However, MPs are preparing for an event that could shake the foundations of Westminster and Whitehall more deeply than the post-budget rows. All the main parties are assuming that Rupert Murdoch, who is now publicly committed to the breakup of the UK, is planning to exact his revenge on Britain's political class for the crisis at News International when he appears before the Leveson enquiry next week.
As they assessed Murdoch's strategy in recent weeks, none of Britain's senior political figures have known exactly what he is planning to say because contacts have been burned in the wake of the hacking crisis.
But it is widely assumed that he will adopt a "plague on all your houses" approach by saying he was no manipulator of politicians. They are expecting Murdoch to say that politicians of all hues beat a path to his door – or summoned him to their (back) doors when they reached power, as David Cameron did after the 2010 election.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
UPDATE 2: A great catch by ceebs in the comments:
...the Lord Justice Vos meeting (he's the Judge dealing with all of the phone hacking compensation cases) to discuss the next round of cases it's noticeable that the number of likely victims quoted in the article, has increased by about 40% from the number quoted at the time of the last round of case discussions. Then they were saying that the number of Likely victims was around 820 roughly.