About

Gerson Zweifach showed just how much he loves a challenge when he stepped into his first ever in-house role for Rupert Murdoch’s scandal-hit news empire. He started in early 2012, when allegations of phone hacking were rife in the UK, and the company promptly split into two – leaving Zeifach in the unusual position of being GC for two companies simultaneously. Rather than baulking at it all, Zeifach saw a unique chance to utilize his 30 years’ trial experience in a new way. ‘It was an opportunity to accomplish something, to get involved in a company that had some legal issues but is otherwise a great group of people. I got here and they asked me to make sure nothing like this ever happens again’, he says. Zweifach had some 30 years’ experience as a trial lawyer, so even though he had never represented News Corp as an outside attorney, the combination of hindsight, together with some in-depth company research, led him to come up with a solid compliance program. ‘We tried not to look in a purely defensive way’, he says. ‘Compliance is an exploding industry in itself, and the bar gets raised every year. Fundamentally, this is not an industry fraught with risk by its very nature, but nevertheless, we had to respond robustly in London’. Zweifach is praised by private practice for the way he ‘has helped steer the company in the midst of a very challenging period’.