pill to facilitate negotiations. After a year, the deal
had not been consummated and, without seeking the
shareholders’ OK, News Corp. extended the poison
pill. A group of institutional investors sued in the
Delaware Court of Chancery on the ground that the
company had reneged on its agreement.
Concerning the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 mandating financial and accounting disclosure, “we’re
POISED FOR THE FUTURE
“We live in interesting times, with an explosion in
content, and we are, first and foremost, a content
company,” Jacobs said. While some competitors
feel besieged by the onslaught of technological
changes, he sees opportunities. The areas of
broadband and mobile content are particularly
fertile, and with News Corp.’s Internet presence
Lou Kling and Howard Ellin. Jacobs reports to Chair-
man and Chief Executive Officer K. Rupert Murdoch
in New York, and also to Peter F. Chernin, the Los
Angeles-based president, chief operating officer and
director.
We live in interesting times, with an explosion in content,
and we are, first and foremost, a content company.”
pretty busy on that front,” Jacobs said. He personally
is involved in various aspects of internal monitoring.
A whistleblower hotline and his preparation of online
training modules related to rules compliance are two
of his accomplishments. He recently made Foreign
Practices Act presentations apropos legal compliance to firm branches in Eastern Europe.
Jacobs is “kept up to speed” on Federal Commu-
nications Commission (FCC) issues by News Corp.’s
Washington office, but for the most part does not
meet face-to-face with regulators. If a transaction
requires commission approval, however, he will meet
with its officials in Washington. Although conversant
in Australian, United Kingdom and Italian laws, “I
would never trust myself to take any action without
getting local counsel involved. You need to know that
you don’t know foreign laws.”
and global satellite assets, these are “great days
for us.”
ROUTE TO PRESENT POSITION
Jacobs launched his career at New York’s Squadron, Ellenoff, Plesent & Sheinfeld (now merged into
Hogan Lovells), first as a part-timer while in law
school, then as a summer associate. Responding
to parental illness, he left the firm two years later
to work for his family’s construction business. Eventually returning, he made partner in 1991. Jacobs
joined News Corp. in 1996, and became its general
counsel “two Januarys ago.” His career progression
has been pretty much a straight line he says, except
for the little hiccup in family business.
LEGAL TEAM AND OUTSIDE COUNSEL
News Corp. boasts a team of several hundred
attorneys, 12 of whom are based in New York. “We’re
very lean when it comes to the corporate matters,”
so virtually everything in that area requires outside
counsel, or at least an assist. Much is performed
in-house, however, including operational and financial
work for the studios, networks and cable channels.
Jacobs does the hiring in New York. Washington-based Hogan Lovells is used the most, with Amy
Freed handling securities work and Ira Sheinfeld
concentrating on tax issues. Complex corporate matters are routed to New York’s Skadden, Arps, Slate,
Meagher & Flom, where Jacobs seeks the counsel of
PERSONAL
Philadelphian Jacobs and his wife, Hannah, are
the parents of a pair of daughters: Emily and Molly.
He graduated from Temple University in 1978 and
achieved his law degree in 1981 from Brooklyn Law
School.
A BOOK AND MOVIE
The March, by E.L. Doctorow, and Transamerica.
—ROGER ADLER
An earlier version of this profile appeared in The
National Law Journal on March 27, 2006.
