March 28, 2024

Media Decoder: Elisabeth Murdoch Won’t Be Nominated to Board This Year

In a change to her father’s plans, Elisabeth Murdoch will not be nominated this year to the board of the News Corporation, a member of the board said Friday.

The News Corporation is scrambling to contain the damage from a British hacking scandal that has inspired shareholder complaints about the company’s corporate governance. Two of Rupert Murdoch’s six children, Lachlan and James, sit on the board of the News Corporation alongside him. When Mr. Murdoch acquired Ms. Murdoch’s company, the Shine Group, in February for $674 million, he said that he expected her to join them.

The News Corporation board includes 16 directors, nine of whom are considered independent, though some of the nine have longstanding ties to the company. One of the nine, Viet Dinh, who is chairman of the board’s corporate governance committee, said Friday that Ms. Murdoch had suggested to the independent directors “some weeks ago” that “she felt it would be inappropriate to include her nomination to the board” at the company’s annual general meeting, which will take place in October.

“The independent directors agreed that the previously planned nomination should be delayed,” Mr. Dinh said in a statement that was distributed by the News Corporation.

The change was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Friday afternoon. A spokeswoman for Mr. Murdoch said he declined to comment. A spokesman for Ms. Murdoch did not immediately respond.

The News Corporation’s purchase of Shine set off a lawsuit last spring on behalf of some shareholders. The suit, filed by Amalgamated Bank, asserted that Mr. Murdoch had historically operated his company “as his own private fiefdom with little or no effective oversight from the board.” The News Corporation has moved to dismiss the suit.

The board came under more attention this summer as new claims of hacking by a News Corporation newspaper, The News of the World, were exposed in Britain. The board is expected to meet next Tuesday; the News Corporation will release its quarterly earnings on Wednesday.

Mr. Dinh’s statement on Friday about Ms. Murdoch concluded, “Both Elisabeth and the Board hope this decision reaffirms that News Corp aspires to the highest standards of corporate governance and will continue to act in the best interests of all stakeholders, be they shareholders, employees or the billions of consumers who News Corp content informs, entertains and sometimes provokes every year.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=4feeabff02650c96fc88846ed0b1c7d0