Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Linklaters LLP, on behalf of the Management and Standards Committee

We write on behalf of the Management and Standards Committee (“MSC”). The purpose of this letter is to supplement our letter of 1 December 2011. In that letter we said that the MSC was not aware of any documents which were likely to be relevant to Mr Myler’s request which threw any further light on the events of May and June 2008.

However, as part of a substantial and continuing investigation, in which this firm has reviewed and continues to review many hundreds of thousands of documents, we recently became aware of an email exchange between Mr Myler and Mr James Murdoch dated 7 June 2008 (a copy of which is enclosed) which is relevant to that question. The email was provided to Mr James Murdoch on 7 December 2011.

Redactions have been made in the light of the on going police investigation and to protect the privacy of Mr Taylor and third parties.

We can confirm that, although our investigation is not complete and our inquiries continue, we have to date found no further material which might be relevant to the exchanges between Mr Myler and Mr Murdoch in May and June 2008.

12 December 2011

Strictly Private & Confidential

Myler, Colin

From:	JRM
Sent:	7 June 2008 14:34
To:	Colin Myler
Subject:	Re: Strictly Private & Confidential and subject to legal professional privilege

No worries. I am in during the afternoon. If you want to talk before I’ll be home tonight after seven and most of the day tomorrow.

From:	Colin Myler
To:	JRM
Sent:	Sat 7 Jun 2008 14:31:41
Subject:	FW: Strictly Private & Confidential and subject to legal professional privilege

James

Update on the Gordon Taylor (Professional Football Association) case.
Unfortunately it is as bad as we feared.
The note from Julian Pike of Farrer’s is extremely telling regarding Taylor’s vindictiveness.
It would be helpful if Tom Crone and I could have five minutes with you on Tuesday.

Colin

From:	Tom Crone
Sent:	7 June 2008 12:30
To:	Colin Myler
Subject:	FW: Strictly Private & Confidential and subject to legal professional privilege.

Colin,

Mark Lewis, Taylor’s lawyer, came back late yesterday with his client’s position (see … it confirms our expectations of Mr Taylor … I told Julian to get us, if possible, a few more days for service of the Amended Defence which is currently due to be served on Monday at the latest. It would help to get Mulcaire (the Second Defendant) to look at our draft Amended Defence before it’s served just in case. His own position will be that he’ll simply submit to judgement without putting in any pleading.

My guess is that our Defence will have to go in ie we won’t settle this first …

Broadly our Defence will accept that we knew of and made use of the voicemail information Mulcaire acquiresd between Feb and July 2005. In relation to the later period, ie July 2005 until May 2006 we plead that “… it is not within the First Defendant’s knowledge as to whether any of its employees was on notice of or acted in concert with …” Mulcaire.

In relation to Taylor’s pleased allegation re the tape of Mulcaire instructing someone on how to get into Taylor’s voicemail, I have now listened to that tape … he is talking to someone he addresses as “Rial” (however it might be spelt). He definitely says “Rial” and not Ryan … the voice is also definitely not [REDACTED]. We have never, to my knowledge had any reporter called Rial … and the voice was not anyone I or Ian Edmondson (I asked him to listen) recognise. This can only be helpful.

In terms of doing a deal with Taylor, I think the best course is to counter-offer at the figure we discussed earlier this week plus costs that would amount to £700K.

BUT there is a further nightmare scenario in this, which is that several of those voicemails on the Ross Hindley email were taken from the Joanne Armstrong’s [REDACTED] phone. She was at the time, and still is, the in-house lawyer at the PFA. [REDACTED]. We can also assume she will have seen this evidence and is waiting to see how Taylor’s case concludes before intimating her own claim. Such a claim is not time-barred until six years after the “event”.

As you know, we have put in a Part 36 offer at £350K, which should give us good protection in terms of what a judge might eventually award … if we can’t settle with T we can sit on this offer in the reasonable expectation that costs from here on will have to be paid by him (ie the PFA). It’s not what we want but it’s the only weapon we have.

Tom

From:	Julian Pike
Sent:	6 June 2008 17:18
To:	Tom Crone
Subject:	Strictly Private & Confidential

Tom

Just confirm my without prejudice conversation with Mark Lewis, Taylor’s lawyer:

Taylor’s attitude is that he wishes to be “vindicated or made rich”.

He wishes to see NGN suffer: one way or another he wants his to hurt NGN.

He wants to demonstrate that what happened to him is/was rife throughout the organisation. He wants to correct the paper telling Parliamentary enquiries that this was not happening when it was [NGN’s line having been there was a rogue trader in CG].

While Lewis had not taken instructions on exactly how much Taylor now wanted following the Part 36 350k offer of Tuesday, he said Taylor had previous made clear that what he wanted if he were to keep the matter confidential was seven-figures plus indemnity costs. Lewis said that his costs were about 200k. If NGN agreed to pay £1.2 million he was sure the case would settle and Taylor would agree to confidentiality.

I said that it was all very well wanting to make NGN suffer—that motivation was plain—but we failed to see what benefit Taylor gained from proceeding to trial, being awarded 50k and then having to pay NGN’s costs. Lewis said that he had advised Taylor that he was now at risk on costs. However, Taylor said he wanted to carry on because of the issue of NGN conduct. He would rather have to pay some of NGN’s costs and have NGN publicity hung out to dry than settle for a sum, in his view, which was too low.

The defence is due on Monday and we are moving forward with it. I suggested it might be helpful if we did not have to serve the defence on Monday although we were prepared to do so. He said he would take instructions. I suspect it might be helpful if I could go back and say you’re taking instructions on the counter offer, so could we have until the end of next week. It will give me more time to get Mulcaire to come in to look at the draft defence to avoid (as much as possible) hostages to fortune. It will be a without prejudice meeting rather than an open meeting.

Julian

Julian Pike
Partner
Farrer & Co