Murdoch’s Fox Boosts Legal Chief’s Pay, Reshapes Law Team

Fox Corp.’s chief legal and policy officer Adam Ciongoli saw his pay package increase about 13% in his second year on the job.

The New York-based company disclosed in a proxy statement late Thursday that Ciongoli received almost $10.4 million in total compensation this year, up from the almost $9.2 million that the former Kirkland & Ellis litigator earned during his first year. Fox declined to discuss the filing.

Fox gave a sizable pay boost to Ciongoli after it hired him in late 2023 from soup maker Campbell’s Co. Ciongoli succeeded Fox’s longtime legal and policy chief Viet Dinh, who stepped down in the wake of the company’s $787 million defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems Inc.

Dinh and Ciongoli are among a growing number of C-suite legal leaders overseeing public policy portfolios in an uncertain regulatory environment.

Ciongoli’s compensation is weighted by about $6.6 million in cash, including almost $1.8 million in annual base salary, as well as more than $3.6 million in stock and option awards. Ciongoli’s pay is on par with the $10.7 million that Dinh received in 2023, a year before Dinh’s earnings jumped to about $27.3 million due to a parachute payment stemming from his transition to a senior advisory role at the media giant. Dinh has close ties to the Murdoch family, serving as godfather to one of Fox chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch’s children.

Lachlan Murdoch and his two siblings recently resolved a fracas over control of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. A Nevada court case, which brought in some of Big Law’s biggest names, was settled earlier this month in an agreement that ended the succession drama with Lachlan Murdoch as the victor.

While that maneuvering took place, Ciongoli revamped Fox’s law department.

He recruited former Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher litigation partner Katherine Meeks last year to be the top lawyer for Fox News, the company’s flagship cable network. This month Fox hired Angela Kang Park from Walt Disney Co.-owned Hulu LLC to be general counsel for its Tubi streaming media division.

Kang joins several other new legal additions by Fox. Carl Benedetti, previously at Paramount Global, was named a vice president of litigation and intellectual property in April. Claire Yan, a former federal prosecutor, joined Fox in January as a deputy chief ethics and compliance officer.

Fox, represented by Kirkland, sued LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a prominent Democratic Party donor, in February seeking information related to his funding of a $2.7 billion defamation case against the company by voting systems maker Smartmatic USA Corp.

Fox’s proxy filing notes that it paid almost $375,000 this year to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s global co-managing partner William Burck, who joined the company’s board in 2021. Quinn Emanuel no longer does legal work for Fox due to Burck’s role as a director, according to securities filings.

Burck was fired from his role as an ethics adviser to the Trump Organization this year after he ran afoul of the Trump administration by representing Harvard University in a lawsuit against the government.

Roland Hernandez, a former media industry executive and Harvard Law School graduate, also serves on Fox’s board and received more than $378,000 in total compensation this year.