James Murdoch resigns from newspaper boards

Amid a massive scandal involving the hacking into phones of public and private figures, James Murdoch has resigned from the boards of companies that publish its British newspapers, Reuters reported Wednesday.

One of the companies, News Group Newspapers, is named as a defendant in the civil lawsuits that have been brought against the News of the World as a result of the phone-hacking scandal, the Guardian reported.

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"News Group Newspapers is the company subject of a string of lawsuits for alleged breaches of privacy stemming from phone hacking, and it is the business unit that anybody wanting to sue either the Sun or News of the World would have to cite as a defendant in a legal case," it stated.

The reports are based on regulatory filings, which show that Murdoch resigned in September.

Murdoch, who is Rupert Murdoch's son, will still be chairman of the News Corp unit that houses its British newspapers, called the News International division, according to the London Evening Standard.

James Murdoch appeared before Britain's parliamentary inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal earlier this month and denied lying during his previous appearance in July.

He insisted that he did not know the true extent of phone hacking at the now defunct News of the World paper, and accused two former employees of misleading the hearing when they testified to the contrary.