Rebekah Brooks, the former head of News Corporation's UK newspaper operations, was given a payout package worth about £7 million pounds (€8.64 million) after stepping down amid the unit's phone-hacking scandal, according to a newspaper report.
The package included legal fees, cash and a chauffeur- driven car, the person said, declining to be identified because the payment is not public. Daisy Dunlop, a spokeswoman for News Corporation's News International unit, declined to comment. Ms Brooks's lawyer Angus McBride couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
The Financial Times reported that the sum consisted of cash and pension payments as well as an allowance for legal fees and the use of a chauffeur-driven car
Ms Brooks, who stepped down in July 2011, and 13 other people will face the first criminal trial next year over their roles in the phone-hacking scandal. Mrs Brooks was among executives charged with either conspiring to intercept the voice mail of celebrities, politicians and crime victims, or conspiring to cover up the practice as the police probe intensified last year.
News Corporation, the New York-based company controlled by Rupert Murdoch, is trying to move on from the scandal after civil lawsuits and a parallel media-ethics inquiry that began last year revealed damaging evidence about hacking and other wrongdoing.
The company has since closed its News of the World tabloid, where the phone-hacking scandal started, and is splitting its publishing assets from entertainment. News Corporation, which holds its annual general meeting in Los Angeles today, has paid out more than $315 million (€242 million) for legal fees, civil court settlements, and the cost of closing News of the World.
Ms Brooks became head of News International, which also publishes the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times, in 2009 after serving as editor of the Sun for 6 1/2 years. Beginning her career as a feature writer for the News of the World in 1989, Ms Brooks rose through the ranks and was editor of that newspaper from 2000 to 2003.
Bloomberg