News Corp’s local review starts

AN internal review into News Corporation’s Australian arm is under way.

Former Victorian Supreme Court judges Frank Vincent and Bernard Teague have had meetings with News Ltd executives.

The Australian Press Council nominated them in July to conduct an independent internal review into third-party payments at the newspaper company, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire.

“They have had several meetings with the company about the methods which it will use and that the review is now under way,” the council said in a statement.

The independent review is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The announcement of the review followed the News of the World phone hacking scandal in the UK.

News Ltd chairman John Hartigan has previously said practices exposed in the UK did not happen in Australia.

Mr Vincent has conducted several official inquiries for successive Victorian governments, while Mr Teague chaired the royal commission in the 2009 Victorian bushfires.