News Corp. assembles legal ‘dream team’ due to concerns about U.S. action over phone-hacking

NPR
David Folkenflik reports that News Corp. is preparing for potential civil or criminal action in the U.S. related to the phone-hacking scandal in the U.K. “The most striking feature of the current standoff is that News Corp. has pretty much assembled a dream team of all-star foreign corrupt practice litigators,” says Columbia University law professor John Coffee. “You don’t put all that investment into this without having some serious concerns about what might happen.” The concerns relate to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans U.S. companies from bribing foreign government officials. News Corp.’s News of the World tabloid (since closed) reportedly paid police officers for confidential information such as phone numbers. || Related: James Murdoch’s press adviser quits over handling of scandal | New York attorney Norm Siegel hired to look into legal options in the U.S. for phone-hacking victims | Carl Bernstein compares Rupert Murdoch to President Nixon, saying the phone-hacking scandal “was the first time I made comparisons between another event and Watergate.”