• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, September 13, 2011

In a move that may reopen the question of corporate hijinks on this side of the Atlantic, a group of News Corp. shareholders are suing the company for failing to curb "serial wrongdoing at multiple divisions," including several American businesses owned by News Corp.

The allegations detail computer-hacking and privacy breaches -- most apparently aimed at competing businesses, rather than ordinary consumers. The plaintiffs argue that the failure to halt illegal practices has caused damage to the company's reputation and material value.

The amended lawsuit against News Corp. expands on an existing lawsuit focused on the circumstances surrounding News Corp's acquisition of Shine Group, a British production company, whose majority share was owned by Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth. She made $214 million from the sale, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The amendments to the original lawsuit were made by plaintiffs including Amalgamated Bank, New Orleans Employees' Retirement System, and Central Laborers' Pension Fund, represented by Grant & Eisenhofer P.A. and Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP.

Among other things, the plaintiffs allege that News Corp.'s board was well aware of widespread misconduct at several of its U.S. subsidiaries as far back as the 1990s.

Grant & Eisenhofer partner Jay Eisenhofer stated: "In fact, our new complaint shows that the illicit phone hacking and subsequent cover-ups at News of the World were part of a much broader, historic pattern of corruption at News Corp., under the acquiescence of a board that was fully aware of the wrongdoing, if not directly complicit in the actions."

The amended lawsuit notes that News Corp. was forced to pay around $1 billion in verdicts and settlements resulting from third-party privacy breaches at its News America Marketing division -- which in the 1990s was subject to five lawsuits alleging extreme forms of anticompetitive behavior, including making false statements about rivals, destroying or mutilating in-store signage, and hacking into a rival's computer database on multiple occasions.

The lawsuit details trouble at another News Corp. subsidiary, NDS Group, which was previously accused of illegally extracting software code from competitors' systems, then posting that information online so hackers could create counterfeit versions to intercept satellite TV programming. A federal jury found NDS' practices illegal.