Andy Coulson paid hundreds of thousands of pounds from News International under compromise agreement

Andy Coulson, former editor at the News of the World and media advisor to David Cameron, has received several hundred thousands of pounds from News International as part of a compromise agreement that was made when he resigned in January 2007.

Coulson, who has been arrested by the police investigating allegations of phone hacking involving the News of the World, received payments from News International while he was working as the Conservative Party’s Director of Communications during 2007.

This financial link has raised further questions about Coulson’s impartiality, and further questions about the Prime Minister’s judgement for having hired him in the first place.

Coulson left the News of the World in January 2007 after Clive Goodman, the paper’s royal editor, was arrested and jailed for phone hacking. He started his new job with the Conservative Party in July 2007, on a salary of £275,000. He continued to receive payments from News International until the end of that year.

According to the BBC’s business editor, Robert Peston, the compromise agreement allowed Coulson to receive his full entitlement under the two-year contract with News International. The remainder was paid in instalments until the end of 2007.

In addition, it is reported that the compromise agreement allowed Coulson to keep his company car and enjoy work benefits, for example health care, for three years after his resignation.

A compromise agreement is a contractual agreement between an employer and an employee that is drawn up when the employee’s employment is to be terminated. Under the agreement, the employee is given a financial settlement in return for agreeing not to pursue an action against their employer, such as unfair dismissal.

The employee must have independent legal advice from an employment solicitor to ensure they are not giving up their right to legal action without suitable compensation. The employment solicitor must also sign the agreement.

Usually a compromise agreement will also include a confidentiality clause that prevents one or both parties from discussing the existence of the agreement or what’s in it. This may be the reason why senior Conservative party members have allegedly said none of the Party managers knew that Coulson was receiving money from News International when he was taken on as communications director.

Coulson was arrested in July 2011 when more evidence of criminality at the News of the World came to light. He had resigned as the Prime Minister’s communications advisor in January 2011.

He has maintained that he did not know anything about phone hacking activity while he was at the News of the World; however, a letter from Goodman that was written in March 2007 and disclosed last month by the parliamentary committee in charge of the phone hacking inquiry, stated that phone hacking was routinely discussed in the News of the World’s editorial conference.

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