James Murdoch, News Corp.'s deputy chief operating officer, obtained an e-mail chain in mid-2008 describing prevalent illegal voice-mail interception at the company's now-closed News of the World tabloid, according to a interior communications released Tuesday by a parliamentary commission.

The chain of e-mails from the tabloid's top editor and lawyers representing the company allude to evidence that so-called phone hacking was more common than the company had claimed. In one instance, the message refers to accusations that phone hacking was "rife."

Just how much Murdoch knew about the degree of phone-hacking is a key issue for the committee looking into News Corp.'s response to wrongdoing at the company. News Corp. long claimed the misconduct was restricted to a single rogue reporter jailed for phone hacking in 2007. That later proved untrue.

Murdoch received the e-mail chain in June 2008 from News of the World editor Colin Myler, including comments from the paper's lawyers about a suit U.K. soccer union boss Gordon Taylor had brought against the tabloid for hacking.

The e-mails released Tuesday address a crucial question in the phone-hacking saga: when senior News Corp. executives first became aware of the widespread climate of wrongdoing at the News of the World.

Murdoch, who oversaw News Corp.'s U.K. newspaper unit from late 2007 to mid-2009, has said he became conscious of widespread wrongdoing in late 2010 as a result of proof that surfaced in civil lawsuits against the paper.

British lawmakers have put forward the notion that News Corp. paid such a big sum to Taylor in 2008 to quiet possible shocking claims of more widespread wrongdoing at the tabloid. Murdoch said in July the size of the settlement was developed from a judgment about the probable damages and costs if the company engaged in litigation and lost.