Dominion Voting Systems and Fox reach last-minute settlement in $1.6B defamation lawsuit | CBC News
Fox Corporation and Fox News reached a $787.5-million US settlement in a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday, averting a high-profile trial that would have put one of the world’s top media companies in the crosshairs over its coverage of false vote-rigging claims in the 2020 U.S. election.
The resolution, whose terms were not immediately disclosed, was announced at the 11th hour, with a 12-person jury selected this morning and the case poised to kick off with opening statements this afternoon. Dominion had sought $1.6 billion US in damages in the lawsuit filed in 2021, with Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis presiding over the case in Wilmington.
Dominion said Fox had admitted to telling lies about the company.
“Lies have consequences,” Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson in a news conference outside the courthouse after the announcement.
Fox issued a statement saying it does “acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.
“We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues,” Fox said.
Dominion lawyers declined to answer questions about whether Fox News would apologize publicly or make reforms.
The deal spares Fox the peril of having some of its best-known figures called to the witness stand and subjected to potentially withering questioning, from executives like Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old media mogul who serves as Fox Corp. chairman and CEO Suzanne Scott, as well as on-air hosts including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro.
The decision to settle also followed a ruling by the judge that Fox could not invoke free speech protections under the U.S. Constitution in its defence.
At issue in the lawsuit was whether Fox was liable for airing the false claims that Denver-based Dominion’s ballot-counting machines were used to manipulate the 2020 U.S. election in favour of Democrat Joe Biden over Republican Donald Trump. Dominion argued that these on-air claims caused the company “enormous and irreparable economic harm.”
Fox News is the most-watched U.S. cable news network, according to media research firm Nielsen.
Jurors were scheduled to hear opening arguments in the case Tuesday afternoon. But they and the judge didn’t return to the courtroom as scheduled. Lawyers spent time chatting and on their phones as they and members of the media waited for someone to announce what was happening.
The primary question for jurors was to be whether Fox knowingly spread false information or recklessly disregarded the truth, the standard of “actual malice” that Dominion must show to prevail in a defamation case. Based on a slew of internal communications, Dominion alleged that Fox staff, from newsroom employees all the way up to Murdoch, knew the statements were false but continued to air them out of fear of losing viewers to media competitors on the right.
Dominion in 2021 sued Fox Corp. and Fox News, contending that its business was ruined by the false vote-rigging claims that were aired by the influential American cable news outlet known for its roster of conservative commentators.
Dominion was originally founded in Toronto by John Poulos and James Hoover.
Another suit
The stakes are even higher considering that another U.S. voting technology company, Smartmatic, is pursuing its own defamation lawsuit against Fox seeking $2.7 billion US in damages in a New York state court.
Fox Corp. shareholders are demanding company records that may show whether directors and executives properly oversaw the Fox News coverage of Trump’s election-rigging claims, sources told Reuters, in what could be a prelude to lawsuits seeking to make directors liable for costs.
A highly anticipated defamation trial pitting America’s most-watched cable news network against a company with Canadian roots is set to get underway this week. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News for $1.6-billion US for a series of claims aired on Fox following the 2020 U.S. presidential election that pushed the lie that Dominion voting machines rigged the election against Donald Trump.
Fox has called Dominion’s damages claim unrealistic and based on flawed economic modelling. An expert report commissioned by Dominion attributed scores of lost contracts to Fox’s coverage, though much of the report remains under seal.
Fox claimed in a filing on Sunday that Dominion had agreed to knock off more than $500 million US from its damages claim. A Dominion spokesperson disputed that claim and said its damages claim remained unchanged.
Fox Corp. reported nearly $14 billion US in annual revenue last year.
Dominion has said defamatory statements about it aired on Fox shows including Sunday Morning Futures, Lou Dobbs Tonight and Justice with Judge Jeanine.
Dominion also has cited evidence that some hosts and producers thought the guests spreading the false statements, including former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, could not back up their allegations.
Fox had argued that coverage of the vote-rigging claims was inherently newsworthy and protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of press freedom.
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