The publisher of the Daily Mirror faces being sued over alleged phone hacking by four public figures, including ex-England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Four civil claims were filed against Mirror Group Newspapers at the high court on Monday in the first formal move for damages from any company outside Rupert Murdoch's News International.

The allegation by Eriksson relates to the Daily Mirror when Piers Morgan was editor. Morgan, now a primetime TV host on CNN in the US, has repeatedly denied knowledge of phone hacking at the title.

A spokesman for Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) said: "We have no comment; we are unaware action has been taken at the high court."

The claims were filed by the solicitor Mark Lewis on behalf of Eriksson, former footballer Garry Flitcroft, actor Shobna Gulati, who played Sunita Alahan in Coronation Street and Anita in Dinnerladies, and Abbie Gibson, the former nanny to David and Victoria Beckham's children. The claims lodged on behalf of Gulati, Gibson and Flitcroft, allege phone hacking at either the Sunday Mirror or the People. MGN faced accusations of hacking during evidence to Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry into press standards, but has always said: "All our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC [Press Complaints Commission] code of conduct and we have seen no evidence to suggest otherwise."

Lewis confirmed to the Guardian that the civil claims had been lodged, but said they had not yet been served on MGN. He added that he did not expect to file any further claims against the Daily Mirror's publisher this week.

Morgan edited the Daily Mirror between 1995 and 2004. He gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry in December when he repeatedly denied any knowledge of illegal newsgathering techniques at the tabloid. But in May, BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman claimed to the inquiry that Morgan had personally shown him how to illicitly intercept voicemail messages at a lunch in September 2002.

Paxman claimed that at the same lunch Morgan had teased Ulrika Jonsson about the details of a private conversation she had had with Erikson, who was England manager at the time.

In one testy exchange with Robert Jay, the senior counsel to the Leveson inquiry, in December 2011, Morgan said: "Not a single person has made any formal or legal complaint against the Daily Mirror for phone hacking."

The four claims accuse the newspapers of a "breach of confidence and misuse of private information" relating to the "interception and/or misuse of mobile phone voicemail messages and/or the interception of telephone accounts".

Former Blackburn Rovers footballer Flitcroft told the Leveson inquiry in November that he had been hounded by tabloid newspapers over an extra-marital affair in 2001. Golati is the actor best known for playing Sunita Alahan in Coronation Street and, previously, Anita in Dinnerladies.

Lewis said no particulars of claim had been filed, but that relevant dates relating to the alleged activity were submitted to the high court. The individuals now have four months to serve particulars of claims on MGN. The merits of the claim remain to be tested.

The formal hacking allegations come weeks before Leveson is expected to outline a critical assessment of the ethics of the press in his report to prime minister David Cameron.

Trinity Mirror has robustly defended its decision not to launch an internal investigation into phone hacking at its titles. Sly Bailey, the former chief executive, told the Leveson inquiry in January that it was unhealthy for a company to investigate unsubstantiated allegations about itself.

Bailey said: "I don't think it's a way to conduct a healthy organisation to go around conducting investigations when there's no evidence that our journalists have been involved in phone hacking.

"There was no evidence and we saw no reason to investigate. We have only seen unsubstantiated allegations and I have seen no evidence that phone hacking has ever taken place at Trinity Mirror."

Trinity Mirror opened a review of its editorial "controls and procedures" following the hacking scandal in July 2011.