Damned If You Do or Don’t: How Murdoch Reporters’ Bribes to British Cops Violate U.S. Law

[OneGrassRoot]

by Jake Bernstein
ProPublica, July 12, 2011, 3:49 p.m.



Imagine you're a Fleet Street reporter at a British tabloid with a pocketful of cash. You meet a trusted source at a pub, a police officer who tells you about the royal family's confidential schedule in exchange for a small gratuity. You hand over a few quid and rush off with a photographer to stake out a health club where Camilla Parker-Bowles is toning her abs.

Guess what: If you work for Rupert Murdoch, you may have violated U.S. law. What the government nails you for could depend on how you and your bosses account for the sketchy deal with the cop.

If you're entirely honest in the company's internal books and enter the payment as a "bribe," you've just created an irrefutable piece of evidence that can be used against you and your company in a prosecution by the Justice Department for violating U.S. statutes against overseas bribery. If, as is more likely, you file an expense account which refers to the cash payment as "taxis” or "office supplies," you stand a chance of being pursued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for keeping fake records.

News International Limited, the British arm of the Murdoch empire, is a subsidiary of News Corp., a publicly traded American company which also owns The Wall Street Journal and Fox News (not to mention the Sunday Times of London, The Times of London, and the British tabloid The Sun.) Because of this, experts say, News Corp. and all of its subsidiaries come under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a Watergate-era law which makes it a crime for U.S. companies to participate in bribery abroad.

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.propublica.org/article/how-murdoch-reporters-bribes-to-british-cops-violate-us-law

[dipsydoodle]

1. News Of The World

was a subsidiary by virtue of share holdings only. NOTW was a separately registered UK company Registered Number 81701 - not just a trade marked title.

If share holdings count then JP Morgan automatically become 28% responsible for the BP Gulf spill, Chevron become completely liable for the clean up issues in Equador and whoever owned Union Carbide shares at the time of Bophal is in a for a lifetime of sleepless nights.

[AndyTiedye]

2. K/R