Trinity Mirror hacking: why its legal director should consider his position | Media | theguardian.com: "Bailey left Trinity Mirror in June 2012 to be replaced the following September by Simon Fox.
Within a month, he was faced by the filing of four hacking claims by lawyer Mark Lewis.
History had finally caught up with Trinity Mirror and Fox, the new boy, obviously had to rely on the "review" already carried out by Vickers.
Initially, the company denied the legal claims and battled to deny the quartet the right to pursue their claims.
Its problems, and Fox's headache, worsened in March 2013 with the arrest of four of the group's senior journalists, current and past, for alleged phone hacking.
The following month, Fox told the Financial Times the company had not set aside any money to meet potential claims. He was reassured by the "considerable work" undertaken by his board members before he arrived.
By that, he meant the review and the 44 legal declarations by senior staff that they had not engaged in phone hacking.
Trinity Mirror refused to make life easy for the claimants. In November 2013, it asked the court to throw out two cases and to quash evidence advanced by two more. The judge dismissed the publisher's application.
Although Fox expected the "cloud hanging over us" to lift, the cloud has got blacker by the month. By July this year, the company revealed it had made a £4m provision to deal with 17 civil hacking claims.
This week we learned it was dealing with many more and, as of today, the high court was told the group is now facing up to 50 claims." 'via Blog this'
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