Lachlan Murdoch, co-chairman and chief government officer of Fox Corp., attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley media convention in Sun Valley, Idaho, July 11, 2019.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch is slated to seem for a deposition on Monday because the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit towards the corporate and its cable networks strikes ahead.
Dominion’s lawsuit towards Fox, which is in search of $1.6 billion in damages, has argued Fox News and Fox Business made false claims its voting machines rigged the outcomes of the 2020 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Fox personalities together with Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro had been deposed earlier this yr.
Murdoch would be the highest-ranking government to be questioned to this point. A Fox Corp. spokesman declined to touch upon Thursday.
In June, a Delaware choose overseeing the case had reportedly dominated that Dominion’s lawsuit may very well be expanded past the cable TV networks to incorporate their mother or father firm, that means Fox Corp.’s chair and Lachlan’s father, Rupert Murdoch, is also deposed. Dominion has argued the mother or father firm and its prime brass performed a job in Fox’s hosts in spreading misinformation about voter fraud.
Requests to dismiss the case have been denied. Neither facet has proven indicators of getting into settlement talks, though that might change earlier than the trial’s anticipated begin in April, CNBC beforehand reported. Fox has vigorously denied the claims.
The depositions are non-public, as are the paperwork that Dominion has been amassing by means of the invention course of. Fox has beforehand requested the court docket to maintain all collected supplies non-public, claiming Dominion mischaracterized what the paperwork present as precise malice.
First Amendment consultants and advocates have been intently watching the case, partially due to Dominion’s prolonged listing of examples that Fox community hosts repeatedly made false claims, even after details got here to gentle. Such instances are sometimes settled out of court docket or dismissed.