News Corporation parts company with law firm Farrer & Co

News Corp’s legal advisers to be replaced by Olswang, who will now advise on civil claims in relation to phone hacking News Corporation has parted company with the law firm used to defend the News of the World in lawsuits taken out by more than 60 alleged victims of phone-hacking. Farrer & Co and News Corporation’s management and standards committee said they had “mutually agreed” the move, according to a statement issued on Friday afternoon. The committee was established by Rupert Murdoch as an internal clean-up and investigations unit in July in the wake of revelations that the phone-hacking activities allegedly ordered by the defunct Sunday tabloid had affected more than 4,000 people, including the families of murder victim Milly Dowler. The move comes just days before Farrer partner Julian Pike is due to give evidence before the parliamentary committee that quizzed Murdoch and his son James over phone-hacking. Last month Pike revealed that one of the phone-hacking victims, Gordon Taylor, reportedly “wanted to be vindicated or made rich” when he was negotiating with the News of the World for compensation. This emerged in written evidence to the committee in relation to advice he gave News International ahead of a controversial £700,000 pay out to Taylor, the head of the Professional Footballers Association. Farrer & Co will be replaced by Olswang which have been asked to “advise News Group Newspapers on the appropriate resolution of civil claims in relation to phone-hacking”. The firm has also been asked to implement the £20m compensation fund that was set up earlier this year. News Group, publishers of the defunct Sunday tabloid, is facing six test cases in January to establish precedent for a total of 64 lawsuits brought against the paper. The management and standards committee comprises Will Lewis, Simon Greenberg and Jeff Palker, and reports to Joel Klein, who is also News Corp’s executive committee member responsible for News Corp’s educational initiatives. Separately, Klein was appearing alongside Rupert Murdoch on Friday at an Excellence in Education conference in San Francisco organised by Jeb Bush. A journalist asking about how Klein would develop News Corp’s educational business was ejected from the event, Olswang has been working for the committee since it was established in July. The law firm is also used by Guardian News and Media, as its external editorial legal adviser. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook News Corporation News of the World Phone hacking Media business Newspapers & magazines National newspapers News International Newspapers Lisa O’Carroll guardian.co.uk

Posted by on October 14, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.