Jude Law Gets $200,000 from Murdoch Company: Who’s Next?

Rupert Murdoch's company News Group Newspapers is settling with actor Jude Law and more than 30 additional victims of phone hacking practices.

Company representatives admitted that employees at some publications gathered information on several high-profile British citizens by unlawfully breaking into their personal voicemail accounts, according to a report from The Associated Press.

News Group has agreed to compensation being assessed on the basis that senior employees and directors of NGN knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence, the company said in a statement.

The news comes as a media ethics inquiry broils on in the UK. Numerous high-profile Britons are taking the stand - including Harry Potter writer J.K. Rowling and singer Charlotte Church - to testify about their own experiences with the aggressive tactics of certain members of the British media. Actor Hugh Grant has been an especially vocal victim, speaking out against what he calls the culture of privacy intrusion.

Other phone hacking victims who settled on Thursday were politicians Chris Bryant, Tessa Jowell, and John Prescott, and Law's ex-wife, Sadie Frost, according to The AP.

Actress Sienna Miller, another large figure in the media inquiry, settled her own claim against News of the World last year, receiving £100,000 in damages.

Several weeks ago we admitted liability in certain cases and offered a genuine and unreserved apology, the newspaper said in a statement, according to a May 2011 BBC report. We hope to resolve other cases swiftly.