Jude Law, one of those who were victims of the hacking scandal, apparently settled for roughly $200,000:

The actor Jude Law received the highest disclosed payout of 130,000 damages plus costs as payments totalling 640,000 were made in 15 cases where the amount of amounts were made public.

The former deputy prime minister, John Prescott, received 40,000, Labour MP Chris Bryant received 30,000; Sadie Frost, Jude Law’s former wife, received 50,000; and Gavin Henson, the Welsh rugby international 40,000. However, with damages from the other settlements and costs factored in, lawyers estimated that News International’s bill could hit 10m.

That’s an appallingly low sum considering what was going on here. It should also be sufficient to get further criminal charges going against all those involved in the scandal, particularly in the way some of the admissions were made.

Then again, the News Corp lawyers did their job too:

NGN made no admission as part of these settlements that directors or senior employees knew about the wrongdoing by NGN or sought to conceal it. However, for the purpose of reaching these settlements only, NGN agreed that the damages to be paid to claimants should be assessed as if this was the case.”

Do what you can to limit liability, make no further admissions, etc., but those admissions already made are pretty damning as it is.