Dominion accused Fox Corp. and its parent, Fox, of damaging their business by making baseless claims about the use of its voting machines to rig 2020 presidential elections in favor of former candidate Joe Biden, and against Republican Donald Trump. Dominion sought $1.6 billion for damages related to these false claims.
A six-week Delaware trial was looming. The settlement was reached before that. On 31 March, Superior court judge Eric Davis issued a significant pretrial ruling that Dominion successfully proved that all 20 of the statements in its lawsuit against Fox had been false.
Fox released a statement following the settlement on 18 April:
Smartmatic, a voting technology company, has filed a defamation suit against Fox News for $2.7 billion. Legal experts believe that Smartmatic will use the Dominion settlement to prove Fox’s willingness for large sums of money during negotiations.