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"A leading group of US banks and investment funds has issued a fresh legal challenge against Rupert Murdoch&amp;#039;s News Corporation, alleging corporate misconduct beyond the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World.  New York-based Amalgamated Bank, which holds around 1m shares in News Corp, is leading the legal action, lodged in the Delaware courts. The lawsuit is directed against the News Corp board members, including Rupert Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan, along with the firm&amp;#039;s chief operating officer Chase Carey.  The shareholders have accused the board of allowing Murdoch to use News Corp as his &amp;quot;own personal fiefdom&amp;quot;. Alongside the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World, the complaint also focuses on the business practices of various News Corp subsidiaries in America, including News America Marketing and satellite smart card firm NDS Group. In the legal filing, the shareholders alleged that the two companies were accused by multiple parties of &amp;quot;stealing computer technology, hacking into business plans and computers and violating the law through a wide range of anti-competitive behaviour&amp;quot;. The legal document refers to a number of legal cases, including a supermarket coupon lawsuit settled against News Corp&amp;#039;s News America Marketing.  Floorgraphics claimed that employees at News America Marketing had hacked into the company&amp;#039;s website in 2003 and 2004. The case was eventually settled in 2009 when News Corp bought Floorgraphics&amp;#039; assets for $29.5 million (\u00A318m). Before the deal was agreed, News America&amp;#039;s chief executive Paul Carlucci was quoted as having told Floorgraphics: &amp;quot;If you ever get into any of our businesses, I will destroy you. I work for a man who wants it all, and doesn&amp;#039;t understand anybody telling him he can&amp;#039;t have it all.&amp;quot; In another case, Vivendi and EchoStar accused NDS - the company acquired by News Corp in 1992 - of illegally extracting the code from its smart cards used to unscramble satellite TV signals.  Amalgamated Bank claims that NDS then posted the Vivendi code on the web, enabling hackers to access the broadcasts for free and inflict more than $1bn in damages on the rival operator.  Jay Eisenhofer, a lawyer representing Amalgamated Bank and the other leading complainants, said that the cases suggest a wider culture of impropriety at News Corp, particularly as several members of News America and NDS were also on the board of News Corp.  &amp;quot;These cases establish a pattern of misconduct that extends far beyond the UK subsidiary. It demonstrates a corporate culture that allows this sort of misconduct to take place over a very long period of time,&amp;quot; he said in an interview.  Amalgamated Bank also led a legal action in July accusing News Corp of &amp;quot;rampant nepotism&amp;quot; following Murdoch&amp;#039;s $675m (\u00A3415m) deal to acquire his daughter Elisabeth&amp;#039;s Shine TV production company. Last month, the US investigation into News Corp was widened beyond claims that victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks were targeted by the News of the World. It is now looking at business practices across the firm&amp;#039;s entire US operation. News Corp&amp;#039;s shares closed Tuesday up a penny, at $16.19, and are up 11% overall so far in 2011. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/media/news/a340283/rupert-murdochs-news-corp-sued-by-shareholders/>