‘21st Century Fox investigates all complaints and we have asked the law firm Paul Weiss to continue assisting the company in these serious matters,’ read a statement. Paul Weiss is the same law firm that conducted an internal investigation into Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chairman. 21st Century Fox executives decided to dismiss Mr Ailes after the lawyers took statements from at least six women who described inappropriate behavior by him. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is a firm of more than 900 lawyers and is widely recognised as having leading litigation and corporate capabilities.

'Nothing special'

Mark Fabiani, a spokesman for Mr O’Reilly, said the law firm was ‘already retained by the company to look into all hotline calls,’ adding that there was ‘nothing special’ about the handling of this case. Civil rights Lawyer Lisa Bloom is representing former The O’Reilly Factor contributor Wendy Walsh in the case of alleged sexual harassment. The move for Fox to secure legal advice follows Miss Bloom and Miss Walsh calling the network’s corporate hotline on Friday to issue a complaint against O’Reilly, which they taped and uploaded to YouTube.