Yahoo Finance Lachlan Murdoch drops lawsuit over Capitol riots claims
Lachlan Murdoch has dropped a defamation lawsuit against an Australian news website just days after Fox News agreed to pay $788m (£635m) to settle a case with Dominion Voting Systems.
Mr Murdoch, the son of Rupert and chief executive of Fox Corporation, last year sued the publisher of the Crikey website over an opinion piece accusing him of being complicit in the January 6 storming of the Capitol.
In a statement, his lawyer John Churchill said the executive was confident he would have won the legal battle but wanted to prevent claims from the Dominion case from being re-aired.
He said: “Mr Murdoch... does not wish to further enable Crikey’s use of the court to litigate a case from another jurisdiction that has already been settled, and facilitate a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers and boost their profits.”
Private Media, the owner of Crikey, described the outcome as “a substantial victory for legitimate public interest journalism”.
The publisher added: “The fact is, Murdoch sued us, and then dropped his case. We are proud to have exposed the hypocrisy and abuse of power of a media billionaire. This is a victory for free speech. We won.”
A lawyer for Private Media said it would seek the company's legal costs from Mr Murdoch.
The climbdown is the second conclusion to a high-profile defamation case involving the Murdoch media empire in recent days.
Earlier this week, Fox News settled a lawsuit filed by Dominion that alleged the news channel had knowingly aired false claims that the company’s technology had been used to rig votes in the 2020 US presidential election.
Both Lachlan and his father Rupert were due to testify in the blockbuster trial before a deal was agreed at the 11th hour.
The Australian lawsuit, which was scheduled to go to trial in October, had centred on a Crikey article that described the Murdoch family as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the US Capitol riots.
Mr Murdoch had described the allegations as “false” and “scandalous”.
Crikey, which was launched in 2000 and employs 10 full-time journalists, hit back by publishing its correspondence with Mr Murdoch’s lawyers online and accusing him of an “abuse of media power”.
In a statement this week, the news site said the settlement with Dominion had proved their own case, adding: “We stand by our position that Lachlan Murdoch was culpable in promoting the lie of the 2020 election result.”
Mr Murdoch’s lawyer said the Dominion case made no reference to the Capitol riots as the judge ruled they were not relevant.
Mr Chuchill added: “Further, the plaintiff Dominion Voting Systems made clear it would not argue that Fox News caused the events of January 6, and at no point did it ever argue that Mr Murdoch was personally responsible for the events of January 6.
“Yet this is what Crikey’s article alleged and what Crikey is attempting to argue in Australia.”
