News Corp. Reaches Settlements in Phone-Hacking Cases

LONDON—News Corp. has entered formal settlement arrangements in a large swath of the civil lawsuits it faces stemming from alleged phone hacking at its now-closed News of the World tabloid, a move to sweep away a big chunk of the financial fallout from the scandal.

Lawyers for hacking victims indicated that the media giant had settled 19 and possibly more of the dozens of cases facing it. The alleged victims—who include celebrities, politicians, victims of crime and others—generally claim that the company’s now-closed News of the World weekly tabloid newspaper breached their privacy by intercepting their voice-mail messages.

Those cases reaching settlements include ones brought by actor Jude Law and politician Chris Bryant, the lawyers said. They added that a slate of test cases, which were due to start being heard in court on Feb. 13, won’t go ahead.

A spokeswoman for News Corp.’s U.K. newspaper unit, News International, declined to comment.

A total of about 60 suits had been filed against the company’s News Group Newspapers unit, which had published the tabloid. Before Thursday, the company had agreed to settle at least about a dozen of those suits. That included an agreement in December to settle with Labour politician and former government minister Tessa Jowell for £200,000 ($308,760). And, earlier last year, the company paid £100,000 plus costs to resolve the claim of actress Sienna Miller.

News Corp. has admitted liability in some cases and apologized for wrongdoing. Michael Silverleaf, who is representing the News Corp. unit that had published the News of the World, said in court in October that the company offered a “sincere and unreserved apology.”

News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.

Web of Connections

The scandal, which News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch has called a “major black eye” for the company, dates back to the arrests in 2006 of a News of the World reporter and a private investigator on the company’s payroll. The two men were sentenced in 2007 after pleading guilty to illegally intercepting voice-mail messages.

The company long asserted that phone hacking had been limited to those individuals. But evidence that the practice was more widespread surfaced in U.K. courts in late 2010 via the civil suits by celebrities and other alleged victims.

That, combined with some new evidence provided by News International to authorities, prompted police in January of last year to reopen their probe into phone hacking. They then expanded the probe to include allegations of corrupt payments by News of the World employees to police officers and other wrongdoing. U.K. authorities have arrested about 20 people in connection with the probes, including former News of the World top editors and reporters. None of the individuals have been charged.

The company has set aside between £15 million and £20 million to cover phone-hacking civil litigation claims. The company also recently agreed to pay £3 million in relation to alleged phone hacking of a murdered teenage girl; the family had not filed a lawsuit.