Rupert Murdoch and other
The billionaire news tycoon, his son Lachlan, and other Fox executives moved to end shareholder litigation brought by a group of pension funds over the network’s role in spreading lies pushed by former President Donald Trump and his allies, who said after the election that it was rigged by voting machine makers. The board members named as defendants include former US House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Even if they were generally aware that Trump’s claims were baseless, there’s no way the specific segments on Fox News “would have reasonably put directors on notice of defamation liability risk,” the legal brief says. “There was nothing unusual about the fact that Fox shows were reporting and discussing those claims—so was every other major media outlet.”
Trump has been indicted twice over claims he tried to stay in the White House illegally, efforts that allegedly led to the Jan. 6 storming of the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters. Fox, meanwhile, agreed on the eve of trial last year to a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems Inc.—the largest ever in a defamation case.
The conservative media giant, which also settled on undisclosed terms with a Venezuelan businessman, still faces an ongoing defamation case by a different election tech company, Smartmatic USA Inc., which is seeking more than $2 billion. But that’s not the fault of its board or management, according to the filing made public Monday.
‘Far-Fetched Charge’
Though the lawsuit in Delaware’s Chancery Court portrays the Murdochs as hands-on managers closely involved in day-to-day programming decisions, there’s no evidence Fox’s senior leaders actually watched the 13 segments on which Dominion and Smartmatic based their defamation cases, their legal brief says.
“Even assuming they had their televisions tuned to Fox News when the statements were made,” they were only a small part of the network’s larger coverage of the tumultuous post-election period, when high-profile hosts including Tucker Carlson repeatedly said Trump’s allies had failed to back up his conspiracy theories, according to the court filing. Carlson was later ousted from Fox over statements that surfaced during the Dominion case.
The motion also assails claims that Fox intentionally pursued a defamatory business model because its leaders were afraid of losing market share to far-right outlets that pandered to Trump supporters, referring to the allegation as a “far-fetched charge” that’s “only conjecture.”
Emails in which Rupert Murdoch suggested pivoting away from election coverage to avoid antagonizing Trump “hardly show a plan of pursuing illegal profits,” the brief says. “The complaint alleges that Rupert personally approved the decision to call Arizona for Biden on election night—the opposite of a decision to fuel Trump’s claims of election fraud.”
‘Emotional Torture’
Nor did the board ignore red flags such as an earlier defamation lawsuit over Fox’s false stories about Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer murdered in 2016, according to the filing. Although an appeals court likened the coverage to “a campaign of emotional torture,” it had no links to the election-related cases, the brief says.
The consolidated lawsuit involves shareholder derivative claims, which are technically brought on a corporation’s behalf against its leaders. Damages in derivative cases are typically paid into a company’s coffers by its officers and directors or their insurers.
The motion to dismiss the case was originally filed under seal March 4.
Fox and its leadership are represented by Richards, Layton & Finger PA and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz. Friedlander & Gorris PA, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, and Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP are lead counsel for for the pension funds.
The case is In re Fox Corp. Deriv. Litig., Del. Ch., No. 2023-0418, motion to dismiss unsealed 3/11/24.
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Learn more about Bloomberg Law or Log In to keep reading:
See Breaking News in Context
Bloomberg Law provides trusted coverage of current events enhanced with legal analysis.
Already a subscriber?
Log in to keep reading or access research tools and resources.