( Financial Times ) -- Rupert Murdoch 's News Corp was on Tuesday facing a fresh barrage of allegations over its business practices after an Australian newspaper released 14,000 emails concerning one of the group 's security subsidiaries . The emails , said to be from the hard drive of a former head of security at NDS , a former News Corp subsidiary , appear to show that the company paid computer hackers to work with its `` operational security '' unit . The cache sheds further light on commercial disputes between News Corp and pay-TV rivals that now span Australasia , Europe , and the US . The Australian Financial Review claimed that NDS 's activities in Australia in 1999 caused millions of dollars of damage to Mr Murdoch 's rivals in the country 's nascent pay-TV market . The business models of Austar , Optus and Foxtel were all damaged by a wave of high-tech piracy at that time . The Australian newspaper said the emails had originated from the computer of Ray Adams , a former commander in the Metropolitan Police in London , who served as head of operational security for NDS in Europe from 1996 to 2002 . NDS had no immediate comment but News Corp said : `` News Corporation is proud to have worked with NDS , whose industry-leading technology has transformed TV viewing for millions of people across the world , and to have supported them in their aggressive fight against piracy and copyright infringement . '' Allegations of fierce competitive behaviour , which were not illegal under Australian law at the time , the AFR said , came a day after the BBC 's Panorama programme levelled similar charges against NDS 's conduct in the UK . The television programme said that NDS used hackers to crack the security of the encryption cards of OnDigital , the UK broadcaster ITV 's entrant in the pay-television market , which went bust in 2002 in the face of competition by News Corp 's British Sky Broadcasting unit . In one email purportedly from the hard drive , NDS employees discuss the fact that a European pay-TV company which News Corp was poised to take a stake in was `` totally hacked '' by pirates . The sender of the email debated whether , in light of the News Corp interest in the company , NDS should `` start to protect [ the particular model of encryption used by the company ] while leaving the main . . . platform compromised '' . In a detailed statement after the Panorama programme , NDS denied ever using hackers against other companies . `` Like most companies in the conditional access industry -- and many law enforcement agencies -- NDS uses industry contacts to track and catch both hackers and pirates . This is neither illegal nor unethical . And , to ensure that all activity remains completely within legal bounds , NDS staff and their contacts operate under a clear code of conduct for operating undercover . `` These allegations were the subject of a long-running court case in the United States . This concluded with NDS being totally vindicated and its accuser having to pay almost $ 19m in costs -- a point that the BBC neglected to include . '' Some of the emails released on Tuesday played a part in that case , where the US pay-TV platform Echostar won part of its claim , but was awarded trivial damages and was ordered to pay NDS 's costs . In the Panorama programme , Mr Adams denied ever having seen or handled encryption codes or cards that would have allowed anyone to hack OnDigital 's machines . Tom Watson , the opposition Labour MP who has led British parliamentary investigations into Mr Murdoch 's group and the UK phone hacking scandal , said he had written to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom , asking it to include the Panorama allegations in its inquiry into whether News Corp and its executives were `` fit and proper '' to own a broadcasting licence . To date , 22 people have been arrested in connection with the phone hacking investigation at the News of the World newspaper . A separate UK police investigation is looking into alleged corrupt payments to public officials by journalists at The Sun . The FBI is also conducting a wide-ranging investigation . © The Financial Times Limited 2012 .
Australian Financial Review released 14,000 e - mail regarding former News Corp Media subsidiary . E - mail ##s News Corp hired computer hackers , allegedly to damage rival pay - TV operations .