Legal consultant at Yahoo! at the time of the Inquiry, where his work involved a wide range of issues, such as audience, content, product compliance and litigation. Giving evidence on behalf of the web services provider, he described how its search engine worked and the processes of removing material with or without a court order.
At the time of giving evidence, Toms was acting as interim Director of Legal Affairs at NI Group Limited, having been seconded from legal firm Allen & Overy. He was asked whether he had had any input into the internal inquiry at News International into phone-hacking and blagging. Told the Inquiry that in his few months in office he had been involved in organising and delivering training to journalists on the Bribery Act 2010, including giving generic advice that journalists should not make payments to public servants. He said he could not answer questions relating to the News of the World since it was the subject of a continuing police investigation.
