LONDON (Reuters) -Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper arm agreed on Monday to search for emails about an alleged "fake security threat", which claimants including Prince Harry say was used to delete millions of emails at the height of the phone-hacking scandal.
News Group Newspapers (NGN) is facing multiple lawsuits alleging unlawful activities by journalists and private investigators for its newspapers the Sun and the now-defunct News of the World from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s.
The claimants – including Harry, the younger son of Britain's King Charles – allege senior NGN executives used a security threat to justify the mass deletion of emails in 2011, after phone-hacking allegations first came to public attention.
NGN will carry out further searches of emails sent by former senior NGN executives, including Washington Post publisher Will Lewis and James Murdoch, for potentially relevant evidence about the security threat, NGN's lawyer said on Monday.
David Sherborne, a lawyer representing the claimants, said in court documents that Lewis and Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA)'s News UK, used the threat to "justify the wiping of the crucial back-up tapes of NGN's email system".
NGN's lawyers, however, reject the allegation and say the security threat related to genuine concerns in 2011 that a former employee was trying to sell Brooks' emails.
"It was not devised as part of an alleged cover-up," NGN's lawyer Anthony Hudson (NYSE:HUD) said in written arguments.
NGN agreed to run further searches after an application by former minister Tom Watson, who says he was targeted by NGN when he was a member of a parliamentary committee which was investigating allegations of phone-hacking.
It also comes as Lewis faces mounting pressure at the Washington Post, including over allegations made in the lawsuits against NGN.
A Washington Post spokesperson said in a statement: "Mr Lewis declines to comment." Lewis has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Monday's hearing was the latest preliminary hearing ahead of a trial of several lawsuits listed to begin in January.
NGN, which is contesting the claims, has paid out hundreds of millions of pounds to victims of phone-hacking by News of the World and settled more than 1,300 lawsuits, but has always rejected allegations of any wrongdoing by staff at The Sun.