News of the World publisher News International sought to draw a line under the phone hacking scandal today, apologising and admitting liability in a number of cases. The company said it had instructed lawyers to set up a compensation scheme to deal with "justifiable claims" and said "past behaviour" at the newspaper was "a matter of genuine regret"…The dramatic announcement came after a number of well-known figures took High Court action over allegations of phone-hacking…The company did not identify which cases it was admitting liability in but said the move applied to allegations of voicemail hacking at the News of the World from 2004 to 2006. Mark Lewis, who is acting for a number of stars who claimed their phones were hacked, said the final compensation bill could easily run into millions of pounds.