The “News at Any Price” debate

Britain’s phone hacking scandal involving the US based News Corp, owners of Fox TV, is lapping at the feet of the controlling company.

The scandal has rocked the Rupert Murdoch media empire and The Week reports: “A new front is about to open up in the battle for legal redress against the Murdochs on behalf of News of the World phone-hacking victims.

Mark Lewis, the lawyer at the forefront of efforts to expose the scandal, flew to America Thursday to discuss with US lawyers the possibility of bringing the first lawsuits in American courts.

Lewis, who  helped one hacking victim win a £400,000-plus settlement from News International, told  The Daily Telegraph he was flying to the States Thursday April 12. He is expected to take part in a debate at the University of California, Berkeley, titled: 'The Murdoch Effect: The News At Any Price?', before travelling to New York to meet Norman Siegel, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Lewis and Siegel will discuss how best to apply US law to the cases of people whose phone conversations were supposedly hacked while they were on American soil. The cases might be proved to have violated American telecommunications and privacy laws.

"His [Lewis's] arrival constitutes a major escalation in the legal ramifications of the hacking scandal for Murdoch, who has tried desperately to keep it away from the American core of his multi-billion-dollar media holdings," The Guardian reports.

Lewis is understood to be working initially on the cases of three phone hacking victims, with a view to taking on further cases if they succeed.

The most high-profile celebrity to have claimed his phone was hacked while in America is the actor Jude Law who says it happened while he made a call at New York's JFK airport. However, it is understood Law is not one of Lewis's first three cases.

According to the Telegraph, one victim is believed to be "connected to" the late Princess of Wales and the Royal household, another is "linked" to the England football team and the third is someone in Los Angeles who was talking to a celebrity outside the country when their phone call was allegedly hacked.

The threat of legal action in the US brings the long-running scandal to the front door of News Corp's New York headquarters. The Murdochs have tried hard to keep the scandal at bay, including closing the News of the World last summer.

Rupert Murdoch's youngest son James has relocated to New York and bowed out of the chairmanships of News International and BSkyB in an effort to distance him from the phone-hacking scandal. As The Guardian reports, "Lewis's deliberations over possible legal action in the New York courts brings the nightmare back to haunt him." James Murdoch is already under huge pressure from some shareholder groups to stand down from his position as deputy chief operating officer at News Corp.