Voting machine firm Dominion has agreed a $787.5m (£633m) settlement in its defamation lawsuit with Fox News and guardian firm Fox Corp.

The settlement was introduced on the eleventh hour, after the 12-person jury had been chosen and simply as either side had been because of ship their opening statements in Delaware Superior Court.

Dominion, which sells digital voting {hardware} and software program, had been suing Fox News Network and its guardian firm Fox Corp over the channel's protection of false vote-rigging claims following the 2020 US election.

Dominion had sought $1.6bn in damages however settled for lower than half that quantity, with certainly one of its legal professionals saying afterwards: "Money is accountability, and we got that today from Fox."

The deal means Fox is not going to need to see a few of its best-known figures referred to as to the witness stand, together with probably Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old media mogul who serves as Fox Corp chairman, and Fox CEO Suzanne Scott in addition to on-air hosts together with Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro.

Fox stated in an announcement: "We acknowledge the court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.

"This settlement displays Fox's continued dedication to the best journalistic requirements.

"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."

Emails, texts and different paperwork produced as a part of the lawsuit confirmed that most of the controversial right-wing community's hosts, executives and producers didn't imagine the vote-rigging allegations however aired them anyway.

It was thought-about a check of whether or not Fox's protection crossed the road between moral journalism and the pursuit of rankings - which Dominion alleged however Fox denied.

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Dominion argued that Fox News made the claims to spice up its faltering TV rankings.

It claimed the information channel "sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process," in line with a duplicate of the lawsuit.

"The truth matters. Lies have consequences," the lawsuit stated. "If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does."

Content Source: information.sky.com