And, surprise surprise, Murdoch blames the lawyers
The gloves are officially off – the investigation, recriminations, allegations and possible civil claims and criminal actions are perhaps some way off, but the battle lines are already drawn.
Rupert Murdoch has now come out in an interview with the wall Street Journal (one of his own publications) and made it clear that he believes the blame lies with his company lawyers, Harbottle & Lewis who in 2007 were asked to advise on whether a large number of emails in the possession of News International were indicative of a significant culture of hacking and law breaking in the News of the world. Whilst the lawyers said there wasn’t any evidence of a “culture” and this seems, subject to what they may have to say about the whole issue, to have been wrong, and the fact there is little sympathy for lawyers generally, this sidesteps the key issues.
The directors of a company are responsible for running it and for knowing what is going on within the company. The company knew there was an issue with hacking, whether widespread or otherwise, and yet it continued. The lawyers were not hackers, they were not facilitators, they are perhaps guilty of being “yes men”.
This story still clearly has a lot of legs, and the blame, recriminations and attempts to pass the buck have only just started…. a soap opera indeed.
Hi, this is a comment.
To delete a comment, just log in and view the post's comments. There you will have the option to edit or delete them.