Fox News Network and Fox Corp, its parent company, have reached a settlement of $787.5 million with Dominion, a voting machine firm, in the Dominion lawsuit for defamation. The settlement was announced at the last minute, as the trial was about to begin in the Delaware Superior Court, where a jury of 12 individuals had been selected.
In the Dominion lawsuit for defamation, Dominion Voting Systems had filed a suit against Fox News Network and Fox Corp, claiming that the channel’s coverage of false vote-rigging allegations after the 2020 US election had damaged the company’s reputation. While Dominion initially sought $1.6 billion in damages, they eventually agreed to a lesser amount in the settlement. As a result, high-profile Fox figures such as Rupert Murdoch, Fox Corp’s chairman, Fox CEO Suzanne Scott, and several on-air hosts will not have to testify in court.
Dominion argued that Fox News made the claims to boost its declining TV ratings, and emails, texts, and other documents produced as part of the lawsuit showed that many of the network’s hosts, executives, and producers did not believe the vote-rigging allegations but aired them anyway.
The Dominion lawsuit was among multiple legal cases filed by individuals and companies who were targets of alleged misleading and false claims propagated by Donald Trump and his allies after his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Another voting technology company, Smartmatic, has filed a separate defamation lawsuit against Fox seeking $2.7 billion in damages in a New York state court.
Dominion Lawsuit: Murdoch Admits Some Fox News Hosts Endorsed False Claims About 2020 election
According to Sky News, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corp, acknowledged in a deposition that some Fox News commentators endorsed false claims made by Donald Trump and his allies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and he did not attempt to prevent them from doing so. The deposition was unsealed on Monday as part of a defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News Network and Fox Corp by Dominion Voting Systems, a Denver-based company that sells electronic voting hardware and software.
Dominion had sued Fox, alleging that some of its employees deliberately amplified false claims made by Trump and his allies that the company’s machines had changed votes in the election and that Fox gave them a platform to do so. Dominion’s lawyers argued that Fox executives were aware that the network was airing “lies” and that they had the authority to stop it but chose not to do so.