Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation case against Fox News and its parent company Fox Corp is going badly for the Murdoch-controlled empire.
The presiding judge, Eric Davis, has already limited the defence Fox News and Fox Corp can make in the case. In the Delaware Superior Court on Wednesday, Davis sanctioned Fox for withholding evidence, and said an investigation was likely into Fox’s handling of documents and whether it had intentionally withheld details about Rupert Murdoch’s corporate role at both companies.
The sanctions came a day before jury selection was supposed to start on Thursday, ahead of a trial start date on Monday. Dominion’s lawyers have argued their efforts to prepare for the case have been hampered by Fox not handing over documents showing Murdoch, Fox Corp’s founder, was also an executive chairman at Fox News.
Fox had previously claimed that Fox Corp and its officers, including Murdoch and his son, CEO Lachlan Murdoch, did not have daily operational roles at the news network.
“This is a problem,” Davis told Fox attorneys on Tuesday. He said the disclosure of the dual roles of Rupert Murdoch could have impacted his previous rulings in the case.
Davis refused Dominion’s attempt to split the trial into separate proceedings for each Fox company and instead appointed an outside attorney (called a special master) to investigate the “very serious” alleged document mishandling. The special master will also assess what sanctions might be made against Fox, including potentially instructing jurors in the case that Fox inappropriately blocked Dominion from obtaining key evidence.
The Associated Press reported Davis had “expressed anger and frustration” in a pretrial hearing after learning that Fox only recently handed over recordings of host Maria Bartiromo talking to Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani (two former lawyers for then-president Donald Trump).
Davis said Dominion could question Bartiromo under oath again, at Fox’s expense. He also ordered Fox to preserve “any and all communications” related to the Murdoch issue.
Fox has denied any wrongdoing and its lawyers said it properly disclosed Murdoch’s roles in its public financial filings. According to The New York Times, Fox lawyer Dan Webb said Wednesday that “nobody intentionally withheld information” from Dominion.
Earlier on Tuesday, Davis had handed Fox a small win by placing limits on what attorneys can and cannot bring up before the jury in restricting references to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, saying that they would be prejudicial and were not relevant to the case.
“Stay far away from it,” he told attorneys at Tuesday’s pre-trial hearing. Dominion had wanted to be allowed to link the allegations against it to the January 6 attack on the congressional building.
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