Wilmington, Delaware
CNN
–
Fox News reached a last second agreement with Dominion’s voting systems on Tuesday when the case ran towards opening statements, paying more than $ 787 million to end a colossal legal battle of two years.
The $ 787.5 million Fox News agreement with Dominion Voting Systems is the largest publicly known defamation agreement in the history of the United States that involves a media company.
The agreement was announced hours after the jury swore in the Superior Court of Delaware. The rumors of a settlement swirled in the court when, after a break for lunch, the procedures were dramatically stopped for almost three hours without explanation, while the parties apparently arrested an agreement.
“The parties have resolved their case,” Judge Eric Davis said, before dismissing the jury of 12 members, accrediting them for giving the parties an impulse to reach an agreement, praising effusively to the lawyers of both parties and discouraging the so -called media.
The innovative agreement “repeats the claim and responsibility,” said Dominion’s lawyer Justin Nelson. “So that our democracy lasts for another 250 years, and hopefully much longer, we must share a commitment to the facts … today they represent a sound support of truth and democracy.”
The right -wing network said in a statement that “recognizes[s] The decisions of the court that find certain statements about Dominion are false “, referring to Davis’s recent decision that 20 Fox News Transmissions of the late 2020 contained blatantly falsely false statements that Dominion manipulated the presidential on Twour.
The payment of $ 787.5 million is approximately half of the $ 1.6 billion that Dominion Initia initially sought, although it is almost 10 times the valuation of the 2018 company, and approximately eight times its fillings.
The last minute agreement means that the case watched closely has ended and won prosecuted for the trial. When establishing with Dominion, the influential executives of Fox News and the prominent personalities in the air will be saved from testifying on their electoral coverage of 2020, which was filled with lies about electoral fraud.
The witness list included the president of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, his son Ceo Lachlan Murdoch and the best hosts of Fox such as Hannity and Tucker Carlson. The emails condemnatory, the texts and the testimony of the deposition made public duration the case revealed that these figures, and many others in Fox, said privately in 2020 that the rigming statements of votes against Dominion were Asininas. But the lies spread in the air anyway.
Rupert Murdoch thought that the electoral denial was “really crazy”, just like Fox’s personalities sold those same statements to millions of spectators. Carlson said “passionately” he hates Donald Trump, whose presidency was a “disaster.” Fox’s hosts, producers, fact verifiers and senior executives said privately in the affirmations in the air of a stolen choice were “Kooky”, “dangerously recklessly” and “amazing”.
These revelations generated months or abrasing headlines for Fox as the case moved towards the trial. When settling now, Fox deprived Dominion the opportunity to further expose his dish with a long weekly test.
“This agreement reflects Fox’s continuous commitment to the highest journalistic standards,” Fox said in a statement on Tuesday. “We hope that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion friendly, instead of the acion of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward with the thesis problems.”
Fox News and Fox Corporation, his parent company, which was also a defendant, argue that Dominion never defamed, and they say that the case was an assault without merit to the press freedoms of the first amendment.
The speculation of an agreement reached a high point in recent days, especially after the court announced on Sunday a one -day delay at the beginning of the trial, which would originally begin on Monday.
The jury selection process concluded as planned on Tuesday morning, and both parties were prepared for opening statements. They simply tangled up objections to specific slides in their presentations. But when the processing did not resume immediately after lunch, the Chans of an agreement seemed to increase per minute, just although the main lawyers on both sides sat in the courtroom, looking at their phones and waiting.
The racially several jurors of six men and six women were brought back to the court, ready for their front row for a historical trial. But Davis, the judge, told the panel that he helped stimulate an agreement.
“Your presence here, cuts compared to what you thought, and without incident in a certain sense, was extremely important,” Davis said. “Without you, the parties would not have legs capable of solving their situation.”
Many on the domain side show the agreement as a victory for democracy and for truth.
“Fox admitted telling Lies about Dominion that captivated huge damage to my company, our employees and the clients we serve,” said Dominion CEO, John Poulos, Tesday out of court.
While Dominion’s case is over, Fox News still faces a second demand for significant smartmatic defamation, another voting technology company that was similarly stained in Fox News shows after the 2020 elections. That case is still in the discovery process, and a short -term test is not expected.
For his part, Dominion still has pending demands against Newsmax and Oan right -wing television networks, as well as against Trump’s allies, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell. All deny irregularities.
Liam Reilly by CNN and Danny Freeman contributed to this story.