Murdoch faces stormy AGM after hacking scandal

LOS ANGELES: Rupert Murdoch faces a firestorm Friday at his News Corporation's annual shareholders' meeting, amid calls for him and his sons to be ousted after the phone hacking scandal in Britain.

But given that his family control about 40 percent of the shares, and that Murdoch-backing billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns an additional 7.0 percent, the calls are likely to fail.

Nevertheless the Los Angeles gathering promises to be dramatic, three months after the hacking scandal blew up in Britain, forcing News Corp. to close its top-selling tabloid, the 168-year-old London-based News of the World.

On the eve of the meeting it emerged that a British lawmaker who was a leading figure in a parliamentary probe into the phone-hacking scandal plans to make allegations about News Corp.'s use of surveillance at the AGM.

"I want to leave investors in no doubt that News Corporation is not through the worst of this yet," member of parliament Tom Watson said, according to the Guardian newspaper, which exposed the full extent of the scandal.

"There are more questions for the Murdochs to answer," added the British lawmaker, who was to attend the LA meeting having been given a proxy vote by a US trade union umbrella group, the Guardian reported.

Earlier this month corporate advisers International Shareholder Services recommended that News Corp. shareholders vote against the reelection of 13 members of the 15-member board, including Murdoch and sons James and Lachlan.

The hacking scandal had rumbled on for two years but it exploded in July when it was revealed that a private investigator working for the News of the World had accessed the voicemail of a missing British schoolgirl later found murdered.

The newspaper's owners, Murdoch affiliate News International, has since settled dozens of compensation claims from celebrities and other public figures whose phones were also hacked. (AFP)