Covert operations reportedly sanctioned by ranking officials of global media firm News Corporation were responsible in undermining the operations of the company's competitors in Australia, according to the investigative works of The Australian Financial Review (AFR).

The AFR said on its report Wednesday that operatives under the employ of News Corp, owned and operated by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, conducted piracy operations against pay television firms Austar, Foxtel and Optus.

Its findings, the newspapers said, were based on four years of investigation and were supported by the thousands of email exchanges that the AFR accessed courtesy of Ray Adams, who reportedly served as chief for the European operation of Operational Security.

Operational Security has been tagged by AFR as the main outfit responsible for the high-tech piracy activities that were directed against News Corp rivals not only in Australia but also in the United States and Italy.

The AFR report revealed that Operational Security was established as the anti-piracy arm of News Datacom Systems (NDS), which is a News Corp subsidiary, the main task of which is to safeguard the media firm's operations against possible hacking attacks.

But the emails leaked by Adams, who served as chief of the Metropolitan Police, showed that NDS was the one which presided over hacking activities that eventually damaged the operations of News Corp's direct competitors.

The emails, AFR said, pointed to Operational Security actions that sabotaged News Corp's business rivals, illegally accessed phone records and manufactured lawsuits against pay TV firms, purportedly under the auspices of NDS.

One of the glaring results of the security group's illegal activities was the annual financial bleeding of some $50 million suffered by News Corp's rival companies, which AFR said precipitated the collapse of Austar.

The news came out as Australia's competition watchdog is approaching its final assessment of Foxtel's $1.9-billion bid to purchase Austar, which when realised will allow the firm to establish its hegemony on the country's pay TV industry.

In a statement, News Corp has rejected suggestions that it was directly involved in illegal activities that aimed to eliminate its competitors.

The company stressed that the allegations were not different from earlier claims by rival firms, which all failed to flourish.

However, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy called the allegations quite serious and stressed that authorities should step in to determine possible wrongdoings committed by News Corp personnel.

"These are serious allegations, and any allegations of criminal activity should be referred to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for investigation," a spokeswoman for Conroy was quoted as saying by Reuters on Wednesday.