Rupert Murdoch's son has suddenly dropped his lawsuit against Australian news site Crikey days after Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems a landmark settlement.
Lachlan Murdoch sued Crikey for defamation last August over a column titled: “Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator.”
The suit was dropped on Friday, citing Fox News $787m settlement with Dominion over lies about the 2020 presidential election.
“Crikey has tried to introduce thousands of pages of documents from a defamation case in another jurisdiction, which has now settled,” the statement from Lachlan Murdoch’s legal team said.
“Mr Murdoch remains confident that the court would ultimately find in his favor, however he does not wish to further enable Crikey’s use of the court to litigate a case from another jurisdiction that has already been settled and facilitate a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers and boost their profits.”
Media pundits are now speculating over the possible fallout from the defamation settlement, with Puck founder Dylan Byers sparking a Twitter frenzy with a column suggesting that Rupert Murdoch could even axe some of his hosts in response to the case.
The Independent has requested comment from Fox News addressing the speculation but there was no immediate change in the network’s programming schedule as of Thursday.
On Tuesday, Fox News reached a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuit moments before opening arguments were about to get under way at trial.
Dominion sued Fox News for defamation, alleging that the network gave a platform to and failed to challenge conspiracy theorists that suggested Dominion was engaged in voter fraud during the 2020 election.
Those conspiracies reportedly damaged Dominion’s business and resulted in employees receiving threats from angry Fox News viewers.
In a last-minute deal, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion $787.5m to put the issue to bed.
Fox News has other legal troubles brewing with Smartmatic revealing what it will take for it to also settle its case against the network.
The voting technology company’s lawyer said on Thursday it won’t accept any settlement smaller than the same $787m payout and will demand a “full retraction” and “apology” from the network.
