News International could be facing more than 500 civil claims for
damages from alleged victims of News of the World phone hacking, the
high court has heard.
At a case management conference at
the high court in London on Friday, Mr Justice Vos also ordered News
International to "preserve" the company iPhones of two senior executives
and their email contents.
It is understood the request for
access to the iPhone emails is related to allegations of concealment
over phone hacking and would not point to evidence of hacking beyond the
time when private investigator Glenn Mulcaire was jailed. "This could
be very significant," said a source.
The case management
conference was called to discuss budgets for the second tranche of civil
claims against News International and heard that the company believes
it could face up to 520 claims in total.
There are
currently 49 individuals who are suing the company including Cherie
Blair, David Beckham's father Ted and footballer Wayne Rooney.
Three new names have been added to the list since the last case management conference at the end of April.
Professor
John Tulloch, who was just three feet from Mohammad Sidique Khan when
he detonated his rucksack explosives at Edgware Road tube station in the
7/7 bombings, submitted his claim two weeks ago, as did Hannah Pawlby,
aide to former home secretary Charles Clarke.
A third new claim was submitted last week by Lewis Sproston, the boyfriend of murdered model Sally Anne Bowman.
Friday's
order made by Vos adds a fresh layer of intrigue to the phone-hacking
saga as iPhones were not available in the UK until November 2007, nine
months after News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman and private
investigator Glenn Mulcaire was jailed for phone hacking.
"There
is evidence suggesting that senior executives at News International
which have company iPhones which were heavily used during the period.
Our primary concern is the preservation of these iPhones and the email
accounts that relate to them," David Sherborne, counsel for
phone-hacking victims, told a case management conference on Friday.
News
International, which had already agreed to preserve the Apple
smartphones for examination, said it did not know yet what was on the
iPhones belonging to the two senior executives, who were not named in
court.
"It has not been established yet what these
materials are, whether they exist, whether they are relevant. This in
the investigations stage," said Michael Silverleaf, QC for News
International.
Vos again issued strong advice to alleged
phone-hacking victims to go to one of the 12 to 15 law firms that have
now accumulated experience of the litigation to keep costs down for all
sides.
He heard there were currently 69 law firms with potential claimants with 12 with victims who have issued claims.
Vos
has repeatedly said that victims have the right to legal representation
but they are not entitled to go to a solicitor who has no experience of
phone-hacking litigation and charge News International for time spent
on catching up.
He agreed a £7,000 fee per case but said that this would be reduced when common costs were taken into account.
The
court heard that it would be "erroneous" to multiply 520 cases by
£7,000 to come up with a total bill for legal fees because part of that
amount would be divided by each law firm's number of clients.
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Source-Sciencedaily
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