Fox reached an agreement with Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday to avoid a defamation lawsuit at the last minute in which the voting machine company accused the television network of spreading falsehoods about alleged fraud in the 2020 US elections, for which it demanded multimillion-dollar compensation.

The unexpected agreement, whose terms are unknown for now, was announced by the Delaware state court judge in charge of the case, who on Tuesday had selected the jury and was preparing to listen to the initial arguments of the two parties.

Dominion sued the conservative channel in March 2021 and demanded compensation of 1,600 million dollars (almost 1,450 million euros at the current exchange rate) for damages and prejudices after his false accusations, in support of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021), that the company had manipulated the presidential elections in which Democrat Joe Biden won.

Later, the representative of Dominion, Justin Nelson, has specified that the amount amounts to $787.5 million (about 717 million euros). “More than two years ago, a torrent of lies dragged Dominion and election officials across the United States into an alternate universe of conspiracy theories,” he said, adding that “lies have consequences,” reports CNN.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement on our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems,” Fox News confirmed in a statement, in which he assured that the agreement reflects his “commitment to the highest journalistic standards“We hope that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably will allow the country to overcome these issues,” the chain said.

Without the expected and unusual judgment

The trial that was to start this Tuesday had aroused enormous expectations in the United States, where it is very rare for defamation lawsuits against the media to ever be heard in court, since most of them settle with extrajudicial agreements. In general, the plaintiffs have this type of case very uphill, since the US Constitution and its First Amendment give broad protections to the press against possible errors and force them to demonstrate that the media acted intentionally and with malice.

To do this, Dominion’s main asset was numerous internal messages from Fox journalists and executives in which they made it clear that they did not believe the accusations of voter fraud that their own company was feeding to viewers. Those communications, which came to light as part of the preparation of this process, included words from Tucker Carlson, one of the best-known faces on Fox News, who, while on his show, gave space to these complaints and assured that at least some were believable, in parallel text messages he referred to them as “absurd” and harshly criticized their promoters.

Presenters and managers of the chain were expected to testify at the trial, including media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of the media empire of which Fox is a part. After resolving this case, the channel faces yet another lawsuit, in this case before a court in New York, presented by the election systems company Smartmatic, which is demanding 2.7 billion dollars for having also involved it in this alleged electoral fraud without providing evidence.