PI Jailed for Phone Hacking Sues News Corp., Says UK Tabloid Reneged on Promised Legal Fees Payment
A private investigator at the center of the ongoing international probes over alleged widespread phone hacking by a British tabloid of celebrities, crime victims and others has sued the newspaper’s United States-based parent company, News Corp.
Glenn Mulcaire alleges in a lawsuit he filed Wednesday in the U.K.’s High Court that the company’s News of the World tabloid breached a June 2010 contract to indemnify him for legal costs and damages by reneging on its promise to cover his attorney’s fees, reports the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.).
News International, a subsidiary that owns the company’s U.K. newspapers, said the suit would be vigorously contested.
Mulcaire, who was formerly employed by the News of the World, got six months in 2007 for phone hacking. He is now defending a civil suit and facing another criminal investigation, the Journal article notes.
An article in the Guardian provides further details. It says the company paid about 246,000 pounds in legal costs for Mulcaire before terminating the arrangement. That’s about $400,000 in U.S. dollars, at the current exchange rate.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “News Reports Claim Murdoch Entities May Have Hacked and Bullied at US Companies, Too”
ABAJournal.com: “New Outrage at News of the World After Scotland Yard Says Mom of Slain Girl, 8, May Have Been Hacked”
ABAJournal.com: “‘Smoking Gun’ Letter Redacted By News of World Publisher Said Editors Knew of Phone Hacking in 2007”
