A Delaware judge has mandated that Fox Corp. disclose hundreds of documents in an ongoing shareholder lawsuit filed three years ago. The case seeks to hold Rupert Murdoch, his eldest son Lachlan, and other board members and executives accountable for a business model that has generated repeated scandals and litigation.
The lawsuit was initiated following a nearly $800 million settlement Fox paid to Dominion Voting Systems over allegations the network spread unfounded election fraud conspiracy theories. A separate defamation case brought by Smartmatic USA remains pending, with that company seeking $2.7 billion in damages. The shareholders’ case also references an undisclosed settlement related to a retracted story about Seth Rich and a phone hacking scandal in Britain that has cost News Corp. approximately $1.5 billion.
Central to the shareholders’ legal strategy is scrutinizing the relationship between Rupert Murdoch and Jacques Nasser, the former Ford Motor Co. CEO who served as an independent director on multiple Murdoch corporate entities for over two decades. The plaintiffs contend that if evidence demonstrates Nasser was insufficiently independent from the Murdochs, it could establish that more than half of Fox’s board lacked independence, potentially moving the case toward trial.
Fox’s legal team unsuccessfully attempted to prevent disclosure of approximately 700 documents containing references to phone hacking, board meeting records, and emails from Nasser’s Ford accounts. The court also ruled that Fox must provide a complete list of email addresses used by both Nasser and Rupert Murdoch, along with years of board meeting minutes. Additionally, the judge granted access to sealed documents from the Smartmatic case concerning Murdoch’s deletion of text messages, which attorneys describe as evidence destruction. Fox declined to comment on the ruling.
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