Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News has settled a highly embarrassing lawsuit with the voting machine company Dominion after accusing it of falsifying results in the 2020 US Election.
It ends a two-year legal battle over whether Fox had knowingly aired conspiracy theories that Dominion had falsified the results, to ensure Donald Trump lost.
Just minutes before the Delaware Superior Court was due to sit, Fox agreed to pay Dominion £633 million, averting a five-week court case that could have seen some of the network’s biggest names, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro take the stand.
Documents had already emerged indicating that even the right-wing network’s star names were unconvinced about what they were broadcasting.
The figure represented about half the amount that the company had been seeking. Even so, the sum is thought to be the largest amount ever paid out in a media defamation case.
Dominion still faces the prospect of having its machines removed in some states.
“Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees, and the customers that we serve,” said Dominion CEO John Poulos.
However, Fox has been spared the ultimate embarrassment of having to public apologise on air for having proliferated Trump’s claims that the election had been “stolen’.
“We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” the company said.
Another voting technology company, Smartmatic, is bringing a second case based on claims also made in the 2020 election.
