Murdered Schoolgirl's Lawyer to Launch Lawsuit in U.S. Against News Corp.

LONDON – The British lawyer representing the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler is trying to launch a class action case against News Corporation’s board members representing phone-hacking victims.

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Mark Lewis of Taylor Hampton is understood to have hired Norman Siegel, a New York-based lawyer who represents a number of 9/11 families, to seek witness statements from News Corp. and directors including Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch in relation to bribery allegations against the police.

He believes that alleged payments to British police sanctioned by News International executives and investigators at the News of The World would constitute a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Last week it emerged that Lewis is close to securing the biggest compensation settlement in the U.K. ever made by a newspaper for the Dowler family. Investigators on the now-shuttered paper had hacked into the schoolgirl’s phone, deleting messages so that her parents had false hope that she was still alive.

Lewis was also one of a number of lawyers representing News of The World phone-hacking victims who were found to be the subject of surveillance by the newspaper as recently as this year.

"Although events might have happened in territories abroad, the American organization can be responsible," said Lewis, speaking to BBC News.

"We are looking at the practices of control effectively - of directors, and of knowledge of directors, and knowledge or what should have been knowledge of directors of a large corporation based in America."