Today Rebekah Brooks announced her resignation. Make no mistake about it, Rebekah Brooks was forced to resign by News Corporation and if she had not they would have sacked her summarily.
How do I know this? Because yesterday I sent senior executives at News Corporation specific evidence and outlined what laws News Corporation had breached and Rebekah Brooks was the key part of that evidence.
If the News Corporation executives had failed to take action they themselves would have been guilty of the concealment of a crime. In Australia if you conceal a crime that is a crime in itself which one would surmise is also the case in the United States.
See the correspondence below and I will discuss further.
From: Shane Dowling [mailto:shanedowling1@bigpond.com]
Sent: Friday, 15 July 2011 12:45 AM
To: ‘teverett@newscorp.com’; ‘jhorner@newscorp.com’
Subject: Allegations that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp guilty of breaching bribery laws in Australia
Teri Everett, Senior Vice President
Corporate Affairs & Communications
News Corporation
Jack Horner, Vice President
Corporate Affairs & Communications
News Corporation
Dear Mr Everett and Mr Horner
News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch are is clear breach of Australian Bribery laws. Specifically section 70.2 of the 1995 Criminal Code which carries a sentence of up to 10 years jail. I am an investigative journalist and have done a posting in relation to this on my website at http://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2011/07/10/rupert-murdoch-and-news-corp-guilty-of-breaching-bribery-laws-in-australia
I intend to publish another article on this topic in the next few days. I would greatly appreciate a response to these allegations.
I emailed Greg Baxter, Director, Corporate Affairs and Creina Chapman, Manager Corporate Affairs at News Ltd in Australia Tuesday the 12th of July and I have not had a response. (See email Below). I know they both received the email as they sent read receipts. (See attachments)
Their failure to respond is not a good look to say the least and is extremely disconcerting given the gravity of the allegations made by me. I do note however the following day Wednesday the 13th July John Hartigan CEO – Chairman News Ltd and Greg Baxter announced that News Ltd would be reviewing their expenditure for the last 3 years to make sure there are no corrupt payments in the accounts.
Given my allegations (facts) could lead to Mr Murdoch and other Directors going to jail your urgent response would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely
Shane Dowling
http://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com
Ph (61) (0) 411 238 704
From: Shane Dowling [mailto:shanedowling1@bigpond.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 12 July 2011 3:04 PM
To: ‘baxterg@newsltd.com.au’; ‘chapmancr@newsltd.com.au’
Subject: Allegations that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp guilty of breaching bribery laws in Australia
Dear Mr Baxter and Ms Chapman
Allegations have been made that News Corp and its Directors have breached Australian bribery laws which have been posted on a website at: http://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2011/07/10/rupert-murdoch-and-news-corp-guilty-of-breaching-bribery-laws-in-australia
Do you have any response to this?
Regards
Shane Dowling
When I sent the above email to Teri Everett, Senior Vice President and Jack Horner, Vice President, Mr Everett sent a read receipt but Mr Horner did not. From this I assume that Mr Everett has taken the responsiblity to deal with it. The standard process that someone in Mr Everetts position would follow is to take it to the General Counsel for the company to deal with or respond. Which in the case of News Corporation is Janet Nova, Interim Group General Counsel.
Janet Nova would have been well aware that the law had been breached. She might have also sent it to their lawyers in Australia to get a second opinion given that is was Australian laws and they would have confirmed that the law had been breached.
This would have left News Corp in a position were they had no choice but to sack Rebekah Brooks. Even more so given that the FBI also announced yesterday that they would be investigating News Corp in the US for potential phone hacking crimes.
News Corporation could have dragged out forcing Rebekah Brooks resignation for a few days or maybe even a week or so. But Rebekah Brooks is due to give evidence next Tuesday at a British Parliament enquiry, so that would have meant Mrs Brook would have had to resign a day or two later. From a PR viewpoint this would have looked liked she reigned because of the evidence that she gave at the enquiry.
So the best move was to make her resign now or sack her if she would not resign.
Update: 17/7/11 Rebekah Brooks has been arrested. Its says on the Guardian website: “The MPS has this afternoon, Sunday 17 July, arrested a female in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking.”
“She was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to Section1(1) Criminal Law Act 1977 and on suspicion of corruption allegations contrary to Section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906.” (Click here to read more)
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Categories: News Corp, Rupert Murdoch
well done!
we need some honest reporting.good on you
Bloody great work!
Hooray you’re a champion. Thank you!
Section 13 of the Crimes Act 1914 Commonwealth gives you Shane the power to prosecute. The only question of course is where?
It can be done in the Federal Court or Federal Magistrates Court or the any of the State Supreme Courts all of which have jurisdiction for the 1914 Crimes Act
Hi Shane,
Very interesting reading your posts but I disagree with your conclusions on this one. Rebekah Brooks resigned as CEO of News International, a British subsidiary of multinational News Corp (incorporated in the US). I would say that pressure on her to resign increased in light of more civil cases being brought concerning phone hacking by newspapers that she ran as well as the fallout from the scandal adversely affecting News Corp’s bid for control of BSkyB, and ultimately News Corp’s reputation. I don’t see how bribery allegations under Australian law may have contributed to pressure on her to resign considering that the companies she ran operated in the UK/Europe.
Similarly, I noticed that you sent your allegations to News Limited about News Corp. News Limited is the Australian subsidiary of News Corp; even though they’re related, the two companies are separate legal entities. However, given that your allegations centre on Brook’s (then Wade) admission in 2003 about conduct which occured in the UK when she was the newly minted editor of The Sun and former editor of News of the World, I very much doubt that Australian jurisdiction can be extended to the UK. In any event, she was arrested under UK laws.
I’m not a lacky for News Corp or defending them in any way, merely helping to distinguish that these are all different companies in different jurisdictions, all confusingly similarly named ‘News somethingorother’. It’s necessary for accuracy to know which one did what where.
Yes. The title is a bit over the top. I had a rush of blood. A better title would be a possible reason why she resigned or an additional reason why she had to resign.
If you look at the next post I did the Australian Federal Police are evaluating a criminal investigation into News Corp. Where that is at I do not know.
I doubt very much that Rebecca Brooks could be charged under Australian law. But the point is the directors of News Corp could. In 2003 when Brooks made the admission they had paid UK police, News Corp was still an Australian company. Under Australian law a company cannot bribe overseas officials. So that would leave the directors of News Corp liable and probably any Australian citizen who might have been working in the UK that was involved (although there probably weren’t any but who knows.)
When I raised this with the senior management at News Corp they had to take action. If they did not and the Australian police did investigate in full they could be liable as well or at the very least their failure to act against Brooks would be seen as evidence that the directors of News Corp where covering up the bribery.
Remember also at the same time the FBI had started to look at News Corp as well for international bribery. So even if the management were not worried about the Australian federal police I am sure they would have been worried about the FBI. And they could no longer say they did not know about Brooks admission because I had brought it to their attention via the emails.