Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, reached a last-second $787.5 million settlement on Tuesday with Dominion Voting Systems, bringing an abrupt halt to a monumental two-year defamation suit just as opening statements were set to begin. The agreement represents the largest publicly recorded defamation settlement involving a media enterprise in United States history.
The resolution was announced in court shortly before opening arguments were slated to start. "The parties have resolved their case," declared Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, before discharging the 12-member jury panel. Judge Davis effusively commended the legal teams representing both sides and noted that the presence of the jury provided the necessary impetus for the parties to reach an agreement before gaveling out what had been described as the media "trial of the century."
Addressing the racially diverse jury of six men and six women—who had returned to court expecting a front-row seat to a historic proceeding—Judge Davis highlighted their crucial role in the outcome. "Your presence here, short compared to what you thought, and uneventful in a certain sense, was extremely important," Davis remarked to the panel. "Without you, the parties would not have been able to resolve their situation." Speculation regarding a potential settlement had intensified in recent days after the court unexpectedly announced a one-day postponement on Sunday, delaying the trial's scheduled Monday start.
The $787.5 million financial payout accounts for roughly half of the $1.6 billion in damages Dominion Voting Systems originally sought in its suit. However, court filings indicate the final settlement figure is nearly ten times the voting technology firm's 2018 valuation and approximately eight times its reported annual revenue for 2021. Outside the courtroom on Tuesday, Dominion Chief Executive Officer John Poulos framed the outcome as an accountability victory, stating, "Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees, and the customers that we serve." Many supporters on the Dominion side similarly viewed the resolution as a triumph for truth and democracy.
In an official statement released Tuesday, Fox News acknowledged the legal findings against its previous broadcasts. "We acknowledge the Court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false," the network stated, referencing Judge Davis's recent pre-trial summary judgment determining that 20 Fox News broadcasts in late 2020 broadcasted blatantly false allegations that Dominion rigged the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Despite this acknowledgment, a Dominion representative confirmed that Fox News will not be required to issue an on-air apology or admit on its broadcasts that it spread falsehoods about Dominion.
"This settlement reflects Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards," Fox expressed in its Tuesday statement. "We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues." Throughout the litigation, both Fox News and Fox Corporation maintained that they had not defamed Dominion, asserting that the lawsuit represented a meritless assault on press freedoms protected under the First Amendment.
By finalizing the settlement, prominent Fox Corporation executives and top news personalities avoided taking the witness stand to be cross-examined under oath regarding their 2020 election reporting. The high-profile witness list had included Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch, CEO Lachlan Murdoch, and leading prime-time hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Unsealed texts, emails, and deposition testimony made public during pre-trial discovery revealed that key figures across the network privately dismissed election fraud claims against Dominion as asinine, even while allowing those falsehoods to air to millions of viewers.
Court documents revealed that Rupert Murdoch privately characterized the election denialism as "really crazy." Host Tucker Carlson wrote privately that he "passionately" hated Donald Trump and described Trump's presidency as a "disaster." Other Fox executives, hosts, fact-checkers, and producers similarly described the on-air claims of a stolen election as "kooky," "dangerously reckless," and "mind-blowingly nuts." While these revelations generated months of damaging headlines for the network, the last-minute settlement prevented Dominion from further exposing the internal communications during a multi-week public trial.
Although this specific legal battle has concluded, Fox News continues to face severe legal exposure from a separate, major defamation lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, another voting technology firm that was similarly disparaged on Fox broadcasts following the 2020 presidential election. That case remains in the discovery phase, with no trial date expected in the immediate future. Concurrently, Dominion is continuing to pursue pending defamation lawsuits against alternative right-wing television outlets Newsmax and One America News (OAN), as well as individual Trump allies including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindell, all of whom deny any wrongdoing.
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