Amid Scandal, Elisabeth Murdoch Withdraws Bid To Join News Corp. Board
Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of embattled mogul Rupert Murdoch, has announced she will not be joining the board of her father’s News Corp. company at this time. Her father had originally announced his daughter’s plans to seek a position on the board following the sale of her company, Shine Group, to News Corp. back in March. Her brother Lachlan and James Murdoch are both currently on the company’s board. Unlike her father and brother James, Elisabeth has not been a focus in the ongoing investigations into the family’s part in an alleged phone hacking scheme to obtain information about story subjects.
In a statement put forth by the company, Viet Dinh, one of its independent directors, explained that the idea to withdraw a bid at this time was Elisabeth’s:
Elisabeth Murdoch suggested to the independent directors some weeks ago that she felt it would be inappropriate to include her nomination to the board of News Corp. at this year’s annual general meeting as had been announced by Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch at the time of the acquisition of Shine Group earlier this year… Both Elisabeth and the Board hope this decision reaffirms that News Corp. aspires to the highest standards of corporate governance and will continue to act in the best interests of all stakeholders, be they shareholders, employees or the billions of consumers who News Corp. content informs, entertains and sometimes provokes every year.
As our sister site Mogulite explains, the younger Murdoch’s apparent plan to “back away slowly” from her family’s scandal-plagued enterprise does not negate the fact that News Corp. was recently slapped with a lawsuit by the Amalgamated Bank, which accuses the company of resorting to nepotism.
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