– Settlement protects Fox executives from having to possibly testify in court about their role in the network’s airing of 2020 Trump-led election lies
Fox News settled with Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday for over $787 million in what would have been a historic defamation trial in a Delaware court.
Why it matters: The 11th-hour settlement protects Fox executives from having to possibly testify in court about their role in the network’s airing of 2020 election lies.
Details: “The parties have resolved their case,” Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said to the jury.
- While Davis did not announce the terms of the settlement in court, Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson told reporters gathered outside the courthouse that Fox News will pay over $787 million to the company.
- “Today represents a ringing endorsement for truth and democracy,” Nelson said.
- “We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems. We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” Fox News Corp said in a statement.
- “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.”
Be smart: For Fox, a settlement “would mean setting a precedent of paying when sued for defamation, which would be a bad precedent for them,” said Shan Wu, a criminal defense attorney,
- Fox faces several other defamation lawsuits, most notably a $2.7 billion case brought by election technology company Smartmatic.
Catch up quick: Legal experts believed that Fox would have faced an uphill battle in court, given how unusually strong Dominion’s case was.
- The judge overseeing the trial had already ruled that Fox News made false statements before the trial even started.
Be smart: A settlement prevents Fox from having to face even more potentially incrementing and embarrassing evidence from being made public during a trial.
What to watch: It’s unclear at this time how much Fox settled for. To date, the largest media defamation settlement in history was ABC News’ $177 million pink slime settlement in 2017.
Bottom line: “Dominion Voting Systems seems to want its reputation restored as well as large monetary damages, so any settlement would need to satisfy both these concerns in order to reach an agreement,” said University of Tennessee journalism professor Stuart Brotman.
Axios