Wall Street Journal Europe May Face More Circulation Scrutiny

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- News Corp.(NWS) may face increased scrutiny of its circulation numbers for The Wall Street Journal Europe, according to published reports.

Both Reuters and The Wall Street Journal late Thursday quoted the United Kingdom's Audit Bureau of Circulation as saying it may re-examine a sponsorship deal between Wall Street Journal Europe and a Dutch consulting firm.

This arrangement between Wall Street Journal Europe, which is owned by News Corp., and the Dutch firm, Executive Learning Partnership, may get another look because new evidence may have come to light, the reports said.

Earlier this week, Andrew Langhoff, the publisher of Wall Street Journal Europe, resigned after "an internal probe showed he pressed for ELP's inclusion in two Journal articles published in 2010 and 2011," the Journal reported, citing undisclosed people familiar with the matter.

"There now appears to be additional new information which may give grounds for further investigation," Jerry Wright, CEO of the Audit Bureau of Circulation, told Reuters in an email on Thursday.

A controversy has arisen about The Wall Street Journal Europe's deal with the Executive Learning Partnership as questions with questions being asked about financials of the arrangement to distribute copies of the newspaper in bulk in Europe.

News Corp. shares closed Thursday at $17.13, down 3 cents. The company dealt with a hacking scandal earlier this year that led to the shutdown of News of the World, a U.K. tabloid newspaper that had been published for more than 100 years.

--Written by Michael Baron in New York.

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