Rupert Murdoch's News Corp could face $100m bill for US investigation into 'police payments'

[Ichingcarpenter]

Source: the Telegraph (UK)

If convicted the company would face a fine many times that size, lawyers have warned.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) have been increasingly aggressive in bringing cases against corporations under America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). They have so far imposed penalties as high as $800m on companies – such as Siemens – where there has been evidence of persistent and unaccounted for bribery.

FCPA experts told The Telegraph it would be "very surprising" if the DOJ didn't take action against News Corp, and would be likely to do so this week. Any FCPA probe against News Corp would damage its reputation and could further destabilisie James Murdoch's position as Rupert Murdoch's heir apparent.

Experts said it would be likely to involve a "systematic and all encompassing" investigation of every one of its business units worldwide, to uncover unlawful bribery, legitimate payments wrongly accounted for, and to check whether sufficiently robust anti-corruption measures are in place.

News Corp would have to bear the cost of the probe, which sources said would "easily cost north of $100m" and tie the organisation up in red tape for between two and four years.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/8629180/Rupert-Murdochs-News-Corp-could-face-100m-bill-for-US-investigation-into-police-payments.html

[aquart]

1. And so they would if we had a real DOJ.

I would be very happy to be shocked by Holder the Hapless taking action.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Fines are just fine with Holder

It stops any criminal prosecution and feeds the tilly.

Unless its a pot case.

[lark]

33. If a Dem is involved, it's full speed ahead

Anyone not a Dem need not worry, this DOJ will not prosecute them.

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. Murdoch was gonna pay $14 billion o buy out the broadcaster BSkyB,

$100 million is chump change to Him as long as he keeps being the emperor of World Propaganda.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Aside from which

News Corp's annual revenue is in excess of US$30 billion

[DontTreadOnMe]

5. The $100 million is just for the government investigation

Then you have the actual lawsuits from each person who was hacked. So far they have settled a few of these out of court for £1M each.

There have been 4000 people purportedly hacked, and that is just the UK. If they find more, this could turn into billions of dollars in lawsuits.

[SpiralHawk]

6. The wages of Republicon Family Cesspool Values

Just disgustipating...

[dipsydoodle]

7. News Of The World was a separate UK company.

UK Company Registered number 81701. The fact that News Corp. owned the shares may be incidental.

See also

Under British law, Stephens explained, all of the assets of the shuttered newspaper, including its records, will be transferred to a professional liquidator (such as a global accounting firm). The liquidator’s obligation is to maximize the estate’s assets and minimize its liabilities. So the liquidator could be well within its discretion to decide News of the World would be best served by defaulting on pending claims rather than defending them. That way, the paper could simply destroy its documents to avoid the cost of warehousing them—and to preclude any other time bombs contained in News of the World’s records from exploding.

http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2011/07/07/is-murdoch-free-to-destroy-tabloids-records/

It may in fact have been in every bodies interest if it had not folded.

[loudsue]

30. Holy SHIT!!! That sucks!! Talk about getting away with murder.

:argh: They should nail this bunch of assholes.

[existentialist]

32. except that there is also a criminal investigation

If criminal charges are filed against individuals then the evidence will be preserved at least until the criminal proceedings are completed.

At least that's my understanding of current circumstances.

[Heywood J]

47. You can bet those documents will be under subpoena from someone.

If the alternative is destruction, someone will take those documents off their hands - hopefully a court.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. The right wing Prime Minister of Brittain is his pal and trying to push this forward

Hopefully, it will be stopped.

Murdoch is the biggest, most evil asshole.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. The 100 million is not a fine that is esitmated cost of

investigations. Different thing.

[Enthusiast]

12. Me too..........nt

[DFW]

8. Let this be the tip of the iceberg

It MIGHT just start to repay the American people for what Murdoch has wrought upon us.
Add two zeroes, and I'd even start to think justice was starting to get done, but there's
probably as much chance of that as there is that Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas will apologize
to the nation for Bush v. Gore.

[craigmatic]

10. I hope they bleed that evil bastard murdoch dry with cases like this.

[peacetalksforall]

11. So what are they saying on FOX? Did the three morning clowns include it?

If yes - is there any video?

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. LOL!

Yeah they were all over it like Wiener's..................................trouble.




http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107100009

[TxVietVet]

13. WE have a DOJ that will do anything like this?

I'll believe it when I see it.

[Joe Bacon]

15. Our Corporate Controlled Conservative Press won't let it happen.

Our CCCP marches lockstep with Screwpert. And if Holder actually got off of his ass and did something, the five whores on the Supreme Court will still let Screwpert off the hook.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. That's all good fun and such, but actual facts are that the others

in that business are Murdoch's competition. Do you think there are lots of high dollar industries where the competitors are 'in lockstep' and wish to help each other? I laugh. A cut throat biz he is in, and the others love him not, all fun time agitprop aside. They will suck him dry and toss the corpse given half a chance. You can count on it.

[Joe Bacon]

18. Really?

Wake me when The Screw York Times or the Whoreshington Post chime in. I'm not holding my breath in anticipation...

[fasttense]

19. So, it's just coincidence that all corporate owned media all spew the same RepubliCON talking points

at the same time and about the same issues? They pretend to be in competition with each other and some more independent non-corporate owned media actually does compete. But the corporate owners of all the media sit on each other's boards, marry each other's wives, send their kids to the same finishing schools and they all vacation at Martha's Vineyard. They don't compete as we define the term. They slice up the viewership pie and set boundaries and limits on who can report what.

If they truly competed, then we would have known there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Bin Laden had absolutely nothing to do with Iraq. But we never heard of it on the corporate news until it no longer mattered. The same when Obama wanted to prevent Fox from coming to press conferences because we all know Fox is simply a propaganda arm of the RepubliCONS. But no, all the news organizations pretended outrage that one of their fellow "reports" would be excluded. If they were truly in competition with each other, they would have sat back and allowed Fox to fight it out with the administration.

No, our corporate owned media is NOT a truly competitive market as is perceived by the public. It is an incestuous group of monopoly holders that is owned completely by RepubliCONS and RepubliCON-lite oligarchs.

[Ichingcarpenter]

22. +1 N/T

[get the red out]

31. That's the only hope

I'm glad you mentioned that, I hadn't thought of it. I know that left to the government they wouldn't dare touch him, but with the backing of the other powerful media companies they just might.

[beac]

20. More bad news for Voldemurdoch's wallet:

Dismissed News of the World journalists may have grounds to sue

Journalists dismissed by the News of the World who are unable to find new jobs and fear their professional reputations have been damaged by the phone hacking scandal could have legal grounds for suing News International, according to employment specialists.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/10/news-of-the-world-journalists

more here:

Let’s assume everyone gets a maximum unfair dismissal award of £68K and a statutory redundancy payment of £5k. Add to that 200 protective awards of 90 days’ pay for each of the 200 journalists. I’m going to assume an average salary of £70,000 which pus the protective award at something like £17,000 per employee.

That gives us total compensation per employee of £90,000. Multiply that by 200 and you get £18,000,000.

http://www.incotraining.co.uk/burtsview/index.php/2011/07/news-of-the-world-and-employment-law/

[Liberalynn]

21. How long before all his remaining media outlets

start screaming he is being "set up" by his political enemies and he is just an "honest billionaire" trying to "save the world" from anyone who doesn't march instep to his right wing agenda.

Our "justice" department won't pursue even a fine, is my guess. They didn't pursue the Bushies, they certainly won't pursue Murdoch. Too many other high placed skeleton's might be revealed.

[fascisthunter]

23. The Fascist News Syndicate is finnally being Exposed

good.... yes republican lurkers, you've been lied to for years, and most of your talking points were fictional BS so you could do the bidding of the wealthy elite, suckerz!

[Kingofalldems]

24. They're trying to censor Fox news!--- republicans

[Kingofalldems]

25. Fox news/Walmart fans not liking this one

[HopeHoops]

37. "Fox news/Walmart fans" - aren't they one in the same?

:shrug:

Hating America takes WORK!

[glinda]

40. Yup.

[Uncle Joe]

26. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Ichingcarpenter.

[Dappleganger]

27. They'll get nothing but a small fine and slap on the wrist.

Politicians are cowards and sheep are too easily distracted.

[matt819]

28. Too big to prosecute?(nt)

Take a middle class person earning $100,000. After taxes, mortgage, food, living expenses, let's say he comes out at the end of the year with $10,000 in the bank. Now let's say that this guy did something for which the punishment was a fine, or jail in lieu of a fine. In other words, if the penalty was too much for him to pay, off to jail.

This poor sap would chuckle at a fine of $1,000, write a check, and get on with his life. Hell, he'll probably even forget about it after a while. Maybe he'd feel the same way with a fine of $2,500. At about $5,000 he begins to groan, and at $10,000 he's beginning to avoid peeing in his pants. At $10,001, he's off to jail.

Scale up to News Corp. From 2005 through 2009, News Corp's net income was around $10 billion, with a loss of $3 billion in 2009. It s2009 balance sheet showed $6 billion in cash. Turning to our poor sap and his $1,000 fine? Well, that's 10% of what's left at the end of the year, and, remember, he's chuckling about it. Sure, $600 million is a lot of money, but it's still only 10% of News Corp's cash on hand in 2009. Hell, they might not even miss it.

What has to happen is, if found to be in violation of US laws, a) people need to go to jail b) a fine that means something has to be applied. And, regarding the former, not some guy at the bottom of the food chain, as happened with the torture "investigations."

Anything less would be a joke, along the lines of letting torturers not even getting a slap on the wrist.

Anyone want to guess which approach this administration will take?

[Kingofalldems]

29. Kick again before someone tries to change the subject.

[valerief]

34. Sounds like a CEO's salary. nt

[go west young man]

35. Ah Republicans!

The fetid smell of corruption, disinformation, and bribery. It would nice to see Faux go down.
The FCC or FEC should of closed them a long time ago for being the propaganda arm of the
Republican party. Who knows how much filth is in Murdoch's closet?

[HopeHoops]

36. K&R

[Trillo]

38. Racism? Why can't governments simply "shoot the corporation dead?"

When Murdoch's corporation(s) smack government and citizens upside the head with alleged wiretapping and bribery, why can't the government simply "shoot the involved corporations dead?" It's just a paper entity, no real blood would be spilled, and a real gun needn't be used.

If a citizen smacks a LEO upside the head, the citizen sometimes get shot, sometimes killed, then real blood is spilled. The regularly reported overkill with humans, and underkill with corporations (who are considered persons), is probably todays greatest "racism" (because corporations are legally considered persons, and governments are also corporations, thus government and corporations are "family" so to say).

It seems all of humanity has become "the minority" under the financial structures of corporatism.

[glinda]

39. Maybe Rupie could wipe out the deficit?

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

41. This is great...

... they are now turning the heat up on the far right and their Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement. It is going to be going on for a long time, right through the next election. Murdoch has his feet to the fire in UK and in USA. Personally, I have felt this is why they had been "holding off" on somethings that others claimed were "too long". Right wing powerbrokers tossed in the hoosegow sounds good to me.

[Ganja Ninja]

42. Let me be the first to say it.

Don't be surprised if we eventually find out that the Bush administration was assisting Murdock's hackers.

[Doctor_J]

43. What's that, 2 days' profit?

How about incarceration in real federal prison for a couple years?

[alfredo]

44. What is the scoop on the hacking of 911 victims family phones?

[kpete]

45. Experts: Murdoch's companies may face US actions (Under 1977 Corrupt Foreign Practices Act)

Source: Huffington Post

Experts: Murdoch's companies may face US actions


GREGORY KATZ | July 11, 2011 12:35 PM EST | AP

....................



They said Murdoch's News Corp. might be liable to criminal prosecution under the 1977 Corrupt Foreign Practices Act, a broad act designed to prosecute executives who bribe foreign officials in exchange for large contracts.

The News of the World was accused of making payoffs to police in exchange for information – a possible violation of the anti-bribery provisions of the act. It would be up to the U.S. Department of Justice to decide if this merited criminal charges, while the Securities and Exchange Commission would determine if there had been financial wrongdoing at News Corp.

Former federal prosecutor Dan Guthrie of Dallas, now a lawyer specializing in white collar cases, said Murdoch's concern about possible legal exposure under the corrupt practices act may explain his abrupt decision to shut down the tainted tabloid.

......................

"The SEC will automatically be involved because it's a listed company, and the Department of Justice will be looking at this," said Stuart Deming, a Washington lawyer who handles corrupt practices cases. "They may wait and see what the British do."

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20110711/eu-britain-phone-hacking-corruption/

[maddezmom]

46. duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4914344