Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Settles Shareholder Lawsuit for $139 Million

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: Hollywood Reporter

News Corp. has agreed to pay $139 million to settle shareholder claims over its corporate governance.

The lawsuit was filed in Delaware state court in March 2011 over the company's $214 million purchase of Shine Group Ltd., which was being run by Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth. It was later amended to include the allegation that the company's board had failed to exercise its duties properly in relation to phone hacking from the company's U.K. newspaper assets.

After several months of mediation, News Corp. and the plaintiffs led by Amalgamated Bank have reached an agreement to resolve litigation.

Beyond the money that News Corp. has agreed to pay, the company has also entered into an agreement to establish a Compliance Steering Committee, chaired by a Chief Compliance Officer. The compliance committee will have to report quarterly to the company's audit committee of the board of directors. Last year, Rupert Murdoch announced in a memo that Gerson Zweifach, senior executive VP and group GC at News Corporation, would be appointed as the company's chief compliance officer.

Read more: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/rupert-murdochs-news-corp-settles-443914

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When it says "News Corp. has agreed to pay", it actually means "the insurance companies for the directors of News Corp have agreed to pay ...". Who knew you could get insurance against overpaying your daughter for her company? Sweet. Avoids inheritance tax too, I suppose.

News Corp has reached a $139m (£91m) settlement with shareholders over complaints filed against the company's board of directors.

The 2011 suit related to the company's UK phone hacking scandal and the purchase of a UK TV production firm.

The money will be covered by the insurance policies of the directors, who are the defendants in the suits.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22248633

I suppose it would be too much to hope that the directors concerned (including, I presume, Rupert Murdoch) now become "uninsurable" as directors, having shown themselves completely incompetent?

[think]

1. The name "News Corp" is an oxymoron

Not that you didn't know that already. Just saying....

[Cirque du So-What]

2. I like anything

that gets in that old bastid's pocket. It means he has that much less cash for buying lawmakers and producing propaganda. Here's hoping the shareholders keep up pressure against all his nefarious activities.

[alp227]

3. Now, "20th century Fox" = a Doors song and obsolete for Fox entertainment/broadcast brands.

News Corp is planning to split its assets in two, with its newspapers and publishing assets keeping the News Corp name while the TV and Hollywood media assets will be renamed 21st Century Fox.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/22/news-corp-reaches-settlement-shareholders

So I guess the opening sequences/closing credits of new Fox movies/shows will no longer have the disgraceful "A News Corporation Company" tag?

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. They ought to call it "Century of the Anchovy Pictures"

Century of the Fruitbat

Century of the Fruitbat was one of Holy Wood's moving picture companies in the Moving Pictures boom following their invention by some Alchemists. Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler conned his way into the business and watched it collapse like all his projects.

The name is a two-pronged play on Twentieth Century Fox, originally Twentieth Century Fox and one of the earliest Hollywood studios. The Century of the Fruitbat was the current century in the University calendar at the time of Moving Pictures, and the Fruitbat is also known as a Flying Fox.

In later books, the phrase refers to the current period of time, usually with the suggestion that a particular person should "enter" it or, more often, a promise from one of the various rulers of the Disc to 'drag (insert country/state here) kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat'. By the time of The Truth, however, Discworld had come into the Century of the Anchovy, which seemed equally happy to have people and places dragged kicking and screaming into it.

http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Century_of_the_Fruitbat