News Corp directors 'allowed hacking cover up'

Amalgamated Bank, the Central Laborers’ Pension Fund and the New Orleans Employees’ Retirement System are suing the board of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire for “disregarding” its duties to shareholders. The trio of shareholders claim the board’s priority was to ensure it was not “at odds” with Murdoch, News Corp’s chairman and chief executive.

The directors, including chief operating officer Chase Carey, deputy chief operating officer James Murdoch, and Viet Dinh, who is overseeing the internal investigations into phone hacking, “intentionally” accepted “absurd” protestations that it was the work of a single rogue reporter, according to papers lodged in a Delaware court. The shareholders also accused News Corp of setting up the Management and Standards Committee, its internal inquiry into phone hacking and bribery formerly headed by Murdoch’s general counsel Joel Klein, as a figleaf for more robust investigations. Klein stepped down from that role earlier this week.