Gurardian headlines says it all:
News Corporation directors could face charges for neglect of duties
Lawyers for Rupert Murdoch's company have protested against criminal charges amid fears over broadcasting contracts
News Corps could face charges in UK
Things got worse, as reported below the orange squiggly do
3:09 PM PT: Update are a collective work of the Murdoch Investigators
H/T Blue aarvark for quote from guardian in her comment below:
Directors within Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation could face corporate charges and prosecution for neglect of their duties, in plans that are being examined by the Crown Prosecution Service.
Company lawyers, fearing a dramatic escalation of the hacking scandal by criminalising the boards on which Murdoch family members sit, are understood to have protested to the authorities.
A criminal prosecution could have a strong adverse impact on the deliberations by Ofcom as to whether News Corp representatives are "fit and proper" to hold UK broadcasting licences.
This was revealed in a Perry Mason moment during the testimony of Chief of police operations Sue Akers
last week that was apparently overlooked until today, according to the Guardian:
But the disclosure that [the Crown Prosecutors] was advising the police on possible corporate criminal charges was made by Akers during her Leveson testimony, when she said that advice was being obtained "in respect of both individual and corporate offences". Despite subsequent speculation that this was a reference to possible action against the company by the US justice department, it is understood that the CPS is only looking at potential UK offences
H/T finally to Ceebs for explaining the BFD in UK terms [leaving aside US for the moment, which would be an even BiggerFD]-- :
It all depends what level the organisation is being investigated at, if News International, then we have the chance that several directors could be struck off and barred from being company directors in the UK.
And then things got more complicated:
4:20 PM PT: News of News Corp problems
At 6:27 BST today, the Guardian reported that London Mayor Boris Johnson had invited Rupert M and Wendi Deng to a "schmoozathon" with other business leaders at the high-profile event swimming event;
the first problem is that the Mayor is the titutlar head of Scotland Yard which is currently pursuing three investigations in the business of which Mr. R is the head.
the second problem is that City Hall it investigating why for ten months, the Mayor failed to report that he had dropped in on the Murdochs for dinner two days before Scotland Yard launched the first of those operations, Weeting, much as everyone had expected at the time (including Andy Coulson who had just resigned from 10 Downing).
More bad news for News Corp is coming from the courts and business media and is reported in the comments below.
Wed Aug 01, 2012 at 6:20 AM PT: Update: News Corp lawyers officially acknowledged their awareness of the Met's statements that CPS is considering corporate changes against the Board of Directors of its UK publishing subsidiary [New International] in relation to phone hacking, as revealed by Sue Akers in [snark moment from your diarist] her 7/23 Perry Mason moment testimony to Leveson inquiry.
http://www.bloomberg.com/...