Australian pension fund calls for Rupert Murdoch to quit as chairman of News Corp

Rupert Murdoch is facing calls from Australian pension funds to step down as chairman of News Corp, as a shareholder revolt spreads to the media magnate’s native country.

Prime Minister David Cameron with News Corporation's chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch Photo: Julian Andrews

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The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ASCI), which represents funds with more than A$350bn (£222bn) in assets, has become the latest body to demand that the 81-year old relinquish the chairmanship of the company he founded. The pressure is mounting on Mr Murdoch to dilute the control he wields in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that forced News Corp to close The News of the World newspaper and has left it facing multiple investigations.

“ASCI recognises that some change has occurred at the board level in 2012, however it remains paramount that News Corp has a truly independent board, both independent of management and family,” said Ann Byrne, the group’s chief executive.

The billionaire will face the renewed challenge to his grip on the company at News Corp’s annual shareholder meeting in Los Angeles later this month. Like UK pension fund Hermes earlier this week, the ASCI is putting its muscle behind a resolution that will be presented at the meeting.

News Corp’s board was the target of criticism by corporate governance critics before the phone-hacking scandal, and the company is adding new faces to its roll of directors. Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and Elaine Chao, who worked for former US president George W Bush, have both been nominated.

The ASCI is also recommending its members vote down News Corp’s renumeration report for top executives, as well as its dual-class share structure. The latter ensures that the Murdoch family controls almost 40pc of the voting rights at the company.

News Corp’s board has advised shareholders to vote against the plan for an independent chairman, and Mr Murdoch is expected to give a robust defence of his dual role as chairman and chief executive when he takes the stage at the meeting.

Although Mr Murdoch is now a US citizen, News Corp remains a major media company in Australia. Its sharesare also listed in Sydney.

Phone hacking: Met chiefs given £300,000 payoffs after resigning

The senior Scotland Yard figures who resigned in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal shared payoffs totalling more than £300,000.

Britain’s top policeman, the country’s head of counter-terrorism and the Metropolitan Police’s press chief all stepped down from the force a year ago over their links to the News of the World.

But although all three quit in the face of public anger and scrutiny from MPs over the close relationship between the police and the tabloid newspaper, rather than being dismissed, it has now emerged for the first time that they received substantial payoffs.

The force’s accounts, disclosed by The Daily Telegraph, show that the Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, was given £176,838 “compensation for loss of office” after his shock resignation last July.

He stepped down over his decision to employ as a PR adviser Neil Wallis, a former deputy editor at the News of the World, and his free £12,000 stay at a spa resort for which Mr Wallis worked.

Sir Paul’s total remuneration for 2011-12 came to £275,263, even though he worked at Scotland Yard for just three months of the financial year. Sources said he chose to clear his desk within two weeks and did not ask for any compensation, but Met contracts mean that he was paid for the rest of his notice period.

The accounts also show that Assistant Commissioner John Yates received £86,382 compensation when he announced his resignation just a day after Sir Paul. He had faced criticism for not fully re-opening the phone-hacking probe when new evidence emerged in 2009, and was investigated for giving a job to Mr Wallis’s daughter, although he was later cleared of misconduct.

Mr Yates’s total remuneration for the year came to £237,244.

Dick Fedorcio, the Met’s Director of Public Affairs, received a £50,503 payoff after he resigned at the end of March.

He was placed on extended leave in the summer after it emerged that he had given Mr Wallis’s firm a £24,000 contract, and stepped down when the force opened gross misconduct proceedings against him.

Mr Fedorcio’s package came to £175,206 for the full year.

Meanwhile Martin Tiplady, Scotland Yard’s Director of Human Resources, was paid £259,462 after resigning in April 2011.

Another Assistant Commissioner, Ian McPherson, was given £25,603 when he resigned in November.

In addition the Met spent £45million on voluntary redundancy payments for 1,166 other staff.

Jenny Jones, Deputy Chairman of the Police and Crime Committee on the London Assembly, said: “I’m absolutely appalled. As far as I’m concerned, if somebody resigns they should walk away from the job and not get a penny for it.

“I think they should have been embarrassed to take the money. It’s taxpayers’ money – it’s not for frittering away on people who chose to resign.”

The payments were agreed by the now-disbanded Metropolitan Police Authority and its successor body, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “Upon leaving the MPS, individuals may have entered into discussions with the MPA / MOPC regarding their contractual position and recompense.

“The outcomes of discussions or agreements are a matter for each individual and we will not be commenting on specific cases.”

The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime said that the payments were made in line with “contractual obligations”.

Leveson Inquiry: misbehaving newspapers should be fined £1 million, says Lord Black

Newspapers and magazines would be fined up to £1 million for the most serious “breakdowns in ethical behaviour” under a new system of regulation suggested to the Leveson Inquiry.

Lord Black was director of the PCC between 2000 and 2006 

Lord Black of Brentwood, chairman of the Press Standards Board of Finance, the co-ordinating body for newspaper and magazine publishers’ trade associations, said “serious” financial penalties should be legally enforceable by a new watchdog.

But he urged the Inquiry chairman, Lord Justice Leveson, to resist any

form of statutory regulation, saying any body policing the media must be independent of Parliament.

Lord Black, who is Executive Director of Telegraph Media Group, publisher of The Daily Telegraph, said the system he was suggesting was “future proof” because it could be applied to print and digital news organisations alike.

He is one of a number of senior figures within the media invited by Lord Justice Leveson to submit ideas for a more robust replacement for the current watchdog body, the Press Complaints Commission.

Lord Black said the PCC had “lost the confidence of the public” because of its “inadequate” response to the phone-hacking scandal.

He said his proposal was backed by the UK’s four main newspaper and magazine publishers’ trade bodies, The Newspaper Society, The Newspaper Publishers Association, The Scottish Newspaper Society and the Professional Publishers Association.

The proposal involves a complaints committee which would deal with complaints against the media, and a separate investigations and compliance panel with the power to call witnesses and demand documents as it looked into breaches of ethical standards.

The two arms of a new regulator would be overseen by an independent trust board, with members of the public making up the majority of its members, Lord Black said.

Publishers would sign up to a five-year rolling contract with the regulator, paying annual fees, and would face legally-enforceable penalties enshrined in the contract for any transgressions.

“This gives the new regulator an enforceable legal basis on which to work without the need for any form of statutory intervention,” said Lord Black.

Financial penalties would be decided by the trust board, which would have the power to levy fines of up to £1m for “systemic breakdowns in ethical behaviour”, he suggested.

He said any publisher who left the voluntary regulatory system would be liable for future fees covered in the contract.

They could also face other sanctions, he added, such as the withdrawal of press cards from their journalists, the withdrawal of access to agency copy and the loss of a proposed “kite mark”, which would make it harder to attract advertising.