Rupert Murdoch manages to avoid libel trial with a last-minute deal. In fact, Fox News has negotiated with Dominion Voting Systems, thus avoiding a public show that would have risked bringing the Australian tycoon and many well-known faces of his television network to the dock. Dominion’s lawyers, outside the Delaware court where everything was ready for the trial, reported that they have reached an agreement with Fox that will pay 787.5 million dollars. “Fox has admitted to having told lies about Dominion that have caused enormous damage to my company,” explained the company’s CEO John Poulos, defining the historic settlement.
At the center of the dispute are conspiracy theories about the 2020 election
Dominion sued Fox in 2021 for defamation seeking $1.6 billion in damages. At the center of the dispute are the conspiracy theories about the rigged 2020 election ridden by Fox who, on the air, has repeatedly called Dominion’s voting devices rigged in favor of Joe Biden and accused the company’s employees of having paid bribes to officials electoral. Some inside the Fox house also said on air that Dominion had worked in the past for Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. The agreement came after the opening of the trial had been postponed by a day and the 12 jurors who were supposed to decide the fate of the defamation lawsuit had been chosen. In the morning the judge had given instructions to the jurors and granted them a lunch break: the proceedings should have officially started at 1.30pm local time with the opening arguments. But the jurors only returned to the courtroom at 16.00, when the judge announced that the “parties had resolved the case”. An announcement simultaneously with the closure of Wall Street, where Fox is listed and where, in after-hours trading, it loses 1%.
The plea agreement reflects the “commitment to high standards of journalism. We welcome the decision to resolve the dispute with Dominion amicably so that the country can move forward,” Fox commented. For the network, the plea avoids a potentially embarrassing process that could have created difficulties for Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, exposing them to criticism for their oversight of news coverage.