The Church of England has sold all of its shares in News Corporation because it fears Rupert Murdoch's media empire has failed to learn lessons from the phone-hacking scandal.

The church first raised concerns about the News of the World's "reprehensible and unethical" conduct more than a year ago, and had been trying to force News Corp into improving its corporate governance.

However, the CofE on Tuesday said in a statement that it was "not satisfied that News Corporation had shown, or is likely in the immediate future to show, a commitment to implement necessary corporate governance reform."

The church's investment bodies, the Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board, announced the sale of their total £1.9m shareholdings, which represent 0.005% of News Corp's total publicly traded stock.

Andrew Brown, secretary of the Church Commissioners, said: "Last year's phone-hacking allegations raised some serious concerns amongst the church's investing bodies about our holding in News Corporation.

"Our decision to disinvest was not one taken lightly and follows a year of continuous dialogue with the company, during which the church's ethical investment advisory group (EIAG) put forward a number of recommendations around how corporate governance structures at News Corporation could be improved. However the EIAG does not feel that the company has brought about sufficient change and we have accepted its advice to disinvest."

The church had been engaged in "board-level dialogue" with News Corp and had raised its concerns about the phone-hacking scandal in person at News Corp's AGM last year.

"Selling shares is a last resort," said Edward Mason of the EIAG said last year. "We prefer to use our voice. It's a question of sustained dialogue."

The last time the church divested all of its investment in a company was in 2010 when it sold all of its £3.6m shares in Vedanta Resources over concerns of human rights violations at the company's Indian mines.

Brown said the church was particularly concerned that Rupert Murdoch remains both chairman and chief executive of News Corp.

At the company's AGM in the US last year, Viet Dinh, a director and top US lawyer, said: "Our CEO is best suited to serve as chairman of the board because he is most familiar with the company's operations, he's most capable of identifying strategic opportunities and he effectively communicates between the board and the executive team."