News Corp Sued by Shareholders Over Phone-Hacking Scandal

News Corporation shareholders sued the Rupert Murdoch-owned company Monday accusing the board of “failing to exercise proper oversight and take sufficient action since news of the hacking first surfaces at its subsidiary nearly six year ago.”

The plaintiffs who filed the class action lawsuit filed in March over Murdoch’s $675 million takeover his daughter Elisabeth’s production agency amended their lawsuit to include the mushrooming phone hacking scandal, which led to the closure of News of the World, a widely read and largely popular Sunday tabloid, which threatened the corporation’s takeover of the BSkyB network.

Amalgamated Bank and several pension funds are among the plaintiffs who allege the company failed to investigate and address the scandal before it came to light highlighting a a lack of corporate governance at News Corp.

“These revelations should not have taken years to uncover and stop,” reads the amended complaint, court documents filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

A News Corporation spokesperson was not immediately able to be reached for this story.

According to a report from BBC News, former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was targeted by the Sunday Times, a newspaper that is owned by News International, which also owned the now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

A front-page article in the Sunday Times once mentioned that Brown had purchased a property from media mogul Robert Maxwell at a “knockdown price.”

BBC reports that someone from the Sunday Times posing as Brown called his bank, Abbey National, to get his private financial information.

Abbey National officials wrote to the Sunday Times editor John Witherow to suggest it suspected that someone from the Sunday Times or acting on its behalf has masqueraded as Mr Brown for the purpose of obtaining information from Abbey National by deception.

Brown also is concerned that the paper may have obtained private medical records relating to his son, Frasier, who reportedly suffered from cystic fibrosis.

The alleged crime is known as “blagging” -- which means knowingly or recklessly obtaining or disclosing personal data or information without the consent of the data controller.

Blagging has been illegal since 1999.

News International has not responded to the newest tawdry revelations.

-With Palash Ghosh