News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch was stepping onto an elevator at the Allen & Co. media gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho, last year, when he was asked about a $1.1 million settlement his company had just paid. The money went to resolve a claim that reporters at a News Corp. newspaper in London had illegally listened to the voicemail messages of a British sports official.

He hadn’t heard of any such settlement, Murdoch said.

“If that had happened, I would know about it,” he told Bloomberg News at the time.