NEW YORK (AP) — A leading shareholder advisory firm says most of News Corp.’s board, including Chairman Rupert Murdoch, should be replaced because of a phone-hacking scandal that has embroiled one of the conglomerate’s British tabloids.
Institutional Shareholder Services said shareholders should vote against the entire 15-member board, except for two new nominees. Two of Rupert Murdoch’s sons, James and Lachlan, are on the board.
The firm said the scandal follows a pattern of failures of board oversight going back as far as 2004. It has “laid bare a striking lack of stewardship and failure of independence by a board whose inability to set a strong tone-at-the-top about unethical business practices has now resulted in enormous costs,” ISS said Monday. ISS also recommends voting against a pay package that gave Rupert Murdoch a bonus of $12.5 million.
The company closed the News of the World tabloid in July amid revelations over frequent voice-mail hacking by its employees.
