Investors on Wall Street as well as in Sydney regained confidence in News Corp.'s stock Tuesday as CEO Rupert Murdoch denied responsibility for the phone-hacking scandal that caused a closedown of one of his famous newspapers.

BSkyB Chairman James Murdoch, News Corp Chief Executive and Chairman Rupert Murdoch (R) appear before a parliamentary committee on phone hacking at Portcullis House in London July 19, 2011. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
The company's stock surged 5.51 percent to 15.79 U.S. dollars Tuesday, restoring about 2.2 billion dollars of the 8.3 billion dollars in market value lost since the phone-hacking scandal broke. In Sydney, News Corp. shares opened 4.8 percent higher Wednesday.

News Corp. had amassed $11.8 billion in cash in preparation for the BSkyB deal. Assuaging investor concerns about what it would do with the cash after the deal was called off, the company decided last week to raise the amount of shares it buys back from the market to 5 billion dollars over the next 12 months, up from a planned 1.8 billion.

On Tuesday, Murdoch and his son and deputy, James, testified before a committee of the British Parliament in London.

At the three-hour grilling from lawmakers at the culture, media and sport committee of British House of Commons, Murdoch apologized for the phone-hacking by the now-closed News of the World (NoW) tabloid, but declined to take personal blame, saying he was at fault only for trusting the wrong people.

"I feel that people I trusted, I'm not saying who, I don't know at what level, have let me down," Murdoch said.

"And I think they behaved disgracefully, betrayed the company and me, and it's for them to pay. I think that frankly, I'm the best person to clean this up," he said.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet