Wilmington, Delaware(CNN) Fox News reached a last-minute settlement with Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday as the case raced toward opening statements, paying more than $787 million to end a massive two-year legal battle that publicly cut the credibility of the right-wing network.
Fox News’ $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is the largest publicly known defamation settlement in US history involving a media company.
The deal was announced hours after the Delaware Superior Court jury was sworn in. Rumors of a settlement swirled in court when, after a lunch break, the proceedings abruptly stopped for nearly three hours without explanation, while the parties apparently signed an agreement.
Attorneys representing Dominion Voting Systems, leave the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, Del., after settling Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News as a jury trial is set to begin, Tuesday, April 18 , 2023.
“The parties have settled their case,” said Judge Eric Davis, before dismissing the 12-member jury, crediting them with giving the parties the motivation to reach a settlement, loud praise for lawyers from both sides, and gave the so-called media “trial of the century” before it began.
The groundbreaking settlement “represents vindication and accountability,” Dominion attorney Justin Nelson said. “For our democracy to survive another 250 years, and hopefully much longer, we must share a commitment to the facts…
The right-wing network said in a statement that it “recognized[s] the Court’s rulings found some claims about Dominion to be false,” referring to Davis’ recent ruling that 20 Fox News broadcasts from late 2020 contain clear “It’s false claims that Dominion rigged the presidential election. It’s spreading lies about Dominion,” a Dominion representative told CNN.
The $787.5 million payout is roughly half of the $1.6 billion Dominion initially sought, though it is roughly 10 times the company’s valuation as of 2018, and roughly eight times its 2021 annual earnings, according to filings court
Fox avoided a painful six-week trial
The last-minute deal means the closely watched case is over and will not go to trial. By settling with Dominion, influential Fox News executives and prominent on-air personalities will be spared from testifying about their 2020 election coverage, which was filled with lies about voter fraud.
Fox lawyers leave court after Dominion Voting Systems and Fox settle a defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million, avoiding trial, over Fox’s coverage of denied election fraud claims, in Delaware Superior Court, in Wilmington, Delaware, US April 18, 2023.
The witness list included Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch, his son CEO Lachlan Murdoch, and top Fox hosts such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Damaging emails, texts, and deposition testimony made public during the case reveal that these figures, and many others at Fox, privately said in 2020 that the claims of fraud to vote against Dominion folly. But lies still spread through the air.
Rupert Murdoch thought the election denial was “absolutely crazy,” even though Fox personalities peddled the same claim to millions of viewers. Carlson said he “passionately” hates Donald Trump, whose presidency has been a “disaster.” Fox hosts, producers, fact-checkers, and senior executives have privately called on-air claims of a stolen election “kooky,” “dangerous nonsense.” attention” and “mind-blowingly nuts.”
These revelations generated months of blistering headlines for Fox as the case went to trial. By settling now, Fox is denying Dominion a chance to further expose its dishonesty in a week-long trial.
“This settlement demonstrates Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards,” Fox said in a statement Tuesday. “We hope that our decision to resolve this dispute with the Dominion peacefully, rather than the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”
Fox News and Fox Corporation — its parent company, which is also a defendant — maintain that they have not defamed Dominion, and say the case is a frivolous attack on First Amendment press freedoms.
Dramatic days in Delaware
Speculation of a trial has reached a fever pitch in recent days, especially after the court on Sunday announced a one-day delay in the start of the trial, which was originally scheduled to begin on Monday.
The jury selection process ended as planned Tuesday morning, and both sides prepared for opening statements. They even briefly confused objections to certain slides in their presentations. But when the proceedings did not resume immediately after lunch, the chances of a deal seemed to increase by the minute, even as top lawyers from both sides sat in court, watching their phones, and waiting.
The racially diverse jury of six men and six women was brought back into the courtroom, ready for their seats before a historic trial. But Davis, the judge, instead told the panel that they helped settle.
“Your presence here, short compared to what you think, and uneventful in a sense, is very important,” Davis said. “Without you, the parties would not have been able to resolve their situation.”
Many on the Dominion side cast the trial as a victory for democracy and truth itself.
“Fox admits he lied about Dominion causing great harm to my company, our employees, and the customers we serve,” Dominion CEO John Poulos said Tuesday outside court.
While the Dominion case is over, Fox News is still facing a second major defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting technology company that was similarly smeared on Fox News shows after the 2020 election. That case is still in the discovery process, and a trial is not expected anytime soon.
For its part, Dominion still has pending lawsuits against right-wing TV networks Newsmax and OAN, as well as against Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell. They all deny wrongdoing.
CNN’s Liam Reilly and Danny Freeman contributed to this story.
