- Fox News reaches a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems to pay more than $787 million
- The defamation case centers around the right-wing media's coverage of the 2020 election
- On top of the payment, Fox News acknowledged that its coverage during the last presidential elections was false
Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems have agreed on a settlement in the historic defamation case, forcing the right-wing media to pay more than $787 million for spreading election misinformation in 2020.
The settlement was revealed on Tuesday, and the papers were signed a few minutes before the deal was made public. On top of paying hundreds of millions of dollars, Fox News agreed to acknowledge that its coverage of the 2020 election was false, but not on the air.
Fox News Pays $787 Million Settlement to Dominion
With the agreement to pay the massive settlement, which is equal to roughly one-quarter of Fox News' earnings last year, the right-wing media's executives and prominent on-air personalities will be able to avoid being required to testify regarding their coverage of the 2020 elections, which they filled with false information regarding voter fraud, as per CNN.
Dominion Voting Systems' co-lead counsel Justin Nelson said that he and other company attorneys expected to go to trial against the right-wing media on Tuesday. Later in the day, a massive settlement agreement was made between the two parties.
Before the last-minute settlement, Nelson said that he and other attorneys were preparing opening statements. This was even during the two-and-a-half-hour courtroom proceedings delay following lunch recess.
The $787 million settlement was announced only a few hours after the jury was sworn in at the Delaware Superior Court. There were rumors of a potential deal that circulated in the courthouse before the announcement of the deal.
According to the Washington Post, Fox News faced a series of headlines after Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit found internal documents revealing that some of the right-wing media's officials considered claims that the outlet made were outlandish.
2020 Election False Claims
The slew of negative stories centering on the media outlet lasted for several weeks, focusing on how it would operate if executives and on-air hosts were forced to take a stand, said First Amendment attorney Jeffrey Pyle.
During a Tuesday interview, Pyle, an adjunct professor at Boston College Law School, said that going to trial would have been daily torture for Fox News. He noted that the $787 million settlement was considered one of the largest libel settlements he remembers.
Pyle noted that if the case had gone to trial, both sides risked losing much more, and Fox News would have had to pay far more than $787 million if it lost. He added that the settlement acknowledged that they were facing a greater risk moving forward.
Dominion Voting Systems was seeking $1.6 billion in its defamation case against Fox News, where it argued that the right-wing media spread false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against former United States President Donald Trump, said BBC.
