Maxwell Sons Won’t Answer in Parliament : Scandal: They invoke their rights against self-incrimination to rebuff legislators’ efforts to investigate the collapse of their father’s empire.

LONDON — Ian and Kevin Maxwell, sons of the late publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, refused to answer questions before a British parliamentary committee Monday, citing possible self-incrimination.

For the first time, their lawyers indicated that both faced likely criminal indictments and civil lawsuits for their roles as directors of firms run by their father, whose body was found in the Atlantic in November after he was reported missing from his yacht off the Canary Islands.

After the refusal to testify, Frank Field, chairman of the parliamentary select committee, said: “We regard it as immensely serious that our requests for documents or copies of documents have not been produced, and we regard it equally seriously that the questions which we put to Ian Maxwell and Kevin were not answered.”

The lawyers for Ian, 35, and Kevin, 32, said the brothers did not possess company documents about pension funds that the committee had requested.

Field said the nonpartisan committee, looking into missing pension funds from Maxwell companies, will seek legal advice to determine whether it should recommend that the brothers be charged with contempt of Parliament by the full House of Commons.

The committee hearing was televised, and lawyers for both Maxwell brothers objected to the public nature of the proceedings.

They indicated that they may advise their clients to answer written questions, but only if the answers were kept secret and withheld from the Serious Fraud Office, which is investigating the collapse of the Maxwell empire.

Maxwell companies include Macmillan publishers and the New York Daily News in the United States and Mirror Group newspapers in Britain.