In an abrupt end to the most-watched media lawsuit in years, Fox Corp and Fox News have agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle Dominion’s defamation action for Fox News’s repeated airing of false claims about Dominion as part of its airing of false claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election. 

The damages appear to be the largest publicly known defamation settlement in U.S. history involving a media company. 

However, the settlement does not require Fox News to admit on air that it lied about Dominion, or publicly apologize.

Just before 4 pm on Tuesday, Judge Eric Davis announced in a Delaware Superior courthouse that “the parties have resolved their case.” 

“Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees, and the customers that we serve,” Dominion CEO John Poulos said. While “nothing can ever make up for that,” the case’s outcome has demonstrated that there are consequences for “spreading lies,” he said. 

Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson said that the case, and the amount of the monetary damages, represent “vindication and accountability” for Dominion and democracy. But he also warned that “misinformation will not go away; it may only get worse,” adding that “all of us must remain ever vigilant” and find common ground in truth. 

In an interview on MSNBC, Dominion lawyer Stephen Shackleford said in addition to “accountability and justice” for Dominion, the case succeeded in exposing the hypocrisy of Fox executives, by revealing their behind-the-scenes communications acknowledging the falsity of the voter fraud claims being aired on Fox News. “We exposed the reality at Fox in a way that it has never been exposed before,” Shackleford said. 

While unprecedented among media cases, the monetary damages in no way threaten Fox Corp’s financial viability. Fox, like all large media companies, has insurance against such lawsuits. And according to some media analysts, with more than $4 billion in cash as of year-end 2022, Fox could likely have paid the full $1.6 billion initially sought by Dominion without even having to sell any assets.

The parties did not publicly disclose the terms of the settlement beyond the monetary damages. 

However, a Dominion representative told CNN that the settlement does not require that Fox News acknowledge on air that it told election lies about Dominion Voting Systems. 

And Fox’s official statement following the sidesteps any direct admission of wrongdoing. 

“We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems,” Fox Media said. “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. 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.” 

The monetary damages, while far short of the original $1.6 billion asked for, are about ten times the amount that Staples Street Capital paid to buy a majority interest in Dominion. 

The settlement also spares Dominion the long, costly, series of appeals that would certainly have been filed by Fox if Fox had been found guilty by a jury of airing the lies about Dominion knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth. 

Fox, for its part, is spared the specter of its top executives, including Fox Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch –- as well as Tucker Carlson and other of its top stars -- being questioned on the stand about the contrast between their private messages and what was said on air. Carlson notoriously noted in one email that he “passionately hates” Donald Trump, and called Trump “a demonic force, a destroyer.” 

During months of developments in the lawsuit, many media lawyers said that Dominion had put together the strongest defamation suit they had ever seen, and might succeed in winning despite the extraordinarily high bar that proving malice represents.   

But after a series of stunning legal rulings against Fox by Judge Davis, including one precluding Fox from claiming protection based on newsworthiness, some observers speculated that seeing the jury selected and seated might have been the factor that pushed Fox to finally agree to terms acceptable to Dominion. 

Some experts declared the costly and very public settlement a victory for democracy and sound journalism, despite Fox’s apparently having avoided having to admit its falsehoods on air as part of the deal. 

But others were less than convinced that the consequences will cause any fundamental change in the behavior that helped convince millions of Americans that there was voter fraud in the election. 

“The stain this leaves on Fox can’t be wiped out with money,” stated Angelo Carusone, president of media watchdog Media Matters. “The network has been completely exposed as a partisan propaganda outlet that is willing to do anything for profit and power. Fox News lied about the 2020 election; they all knew it was a lie, right up to the Murdochs themselves. What the Dominion trial offered was a keyhole view into the day-to-day industrial-scale deceit that takes place at Fox. It helped illustrate why the company is such a uniquely destructive force. Ultimately, though, the only way to hold Fox accountable is for the cable companies that force every cable customer to subsidize Fox by grossly overpaying for it, even if they never watch it, not to give in to Fox's bullying tactics.” 

In an MSNBC interview, Carusone also predicted that Fox News will work harder than ever to stir up its core audience to try to distract from and put behind it the lawsuit's bad publicity and the revelations about what Fox executives and hosts said behind the scenes.

Fox also faces a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit by another voting technology company, Smartmatic, as well as a lawsuit by a former producer, Amy Grossberg, who was to be a witness for Dominion. 

Dominion still has six pending defamation suits, including ones against right-wing networks Newsmax and OAN, Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and Trump advocate/pillow seller Mike Lindell. They have all denied wrongdoing. Dominion has asked for at least $1.6 billion in damages in each of its suits against Newsmax and OAN. 

After the settlement was announced, Dominion lawyers confirmed that Dominion would quickly "move onto the next” lawsuit. 

After the Fox settlement, Newsmax put out a statement saying that it “believes that the facts at issue in Dominion’s case against it are materially different from those that may have driven Fox to settle, and no conclusion about Newsmax should be drawn from that settlement. Newsmax stands by its coverage and analysis of the 2020 election and will continue to vigorously defend against the claim.”