lawsuits

Even in today’s highly partisan media world, experts said, the lack of coverage about the private comments of Fox’s top executives and hosts stands out.

“It is ironic that Fox is relying on a landmark case that was designed to help the news media play the watchdog role in a democracy and is under attack by Gov. DeSantis, Donald Trump and other figures who have been untethered in their attacks on journalists as enemies of the people,” said Jane Hall, a communication professor at American University.

The suit accused Malone of unfairly benefiting from Charter’s $78.7 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable in 2015. The defendants didn’t admit wrongdoing.

Paramount Global will pay $122.5 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the 2019 CBS-Viacom merger was unfair to shareholders, the company said in a filing Friday. The settlement is still subject to approval by Delaware’s Court of Chancery. CalPERS, California’s state pension fund, was the lead plaintiff in the litigation, which also named Shari Redstone and the Redstone family’s National Amusements as defendants. The core allegation was that Shari Redstone pursued the merger to consolidate power and become a corporate magnate on par with her late father Summer Redstone.

Fox News and its parent company face serious threats to their financial and reputational health from a blockbuster defamation lawsuit tied to coverage of the 2020 election that legal experts believe has a solid chance of succeeding.

Twitter is urging a federal judge to again throw out a class-action privacy lawsuit over allegations that the company incorporated users’ email addresses and phone numbers, which were provided for security purposes, into an ad-targeting platform.

It’s a risky strategy, legal experts say, but could help the network make the case that its commentators had reason to see false claims as plausible. Above: Donald Trump supporters demonstrate in Philadelphia in November 2020, claiming the presidential election was rigged against him. (John Minchillo/AP)

As the National Football League’s official production arm, NFL Films has long generated popular content that chronicles the history of America’s most popular sport from an up-close, behind-the-scenes perspective. A new lawsuit alleges that it also created something much different in its vast archive: a catalog of lewd shots of women — fans and cheerleaders — at games. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AP)

Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said in a deposition in an already-explosive defamation case against his company’s top business, Fox News, that “some of our commentators were endorsing” a series of claims that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, the latest revelation that suggests Fox executives could have been aware that some of the company’s hosts were pushing baseless assertions.

Fox News host Howard Kurtz said on Sunday that the network will not allow him to cover the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox. Kurtz said on his MediaBuzz show on Sunday that the company is not allowing him to cover the case, despite his belief that he should cover it since it is a “major media story.” He said that for now, he cannot talk about the case, but will let his audience know if that policy changes.

Ruling keeps secret Trump’s efforts to prevent testimony by top aides and law defining the scope of confidentiality of Oval Office communications.

“This is a case about Defendants’ opportunistic repudiation of Warner/HBO’s exclusive streaming rights in the popular animated comedy series South Park, for which Warner/HBO agreed to pay more than half a billion dollars,” the breach of contract and other claims suit filed in New York says of the big bucks 2019 deal the parties struck. “As a result of Defendants’ misconduct, Warner/HBO has incurred, and continues to incur, damages in excess of $200 million dollars,” the complaint adds.

The disclosure of behind-the-scenes emails and texts greatly increased the chances that Dominion will win its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, experts say.

A federal magistrate judge denied LIV Golf’s sovereign immunity claims and ruled that its Saudi Arabian benefactors are subject to discovery, must turn over relevant information and sit for depositions. The ruling marks a significant victory for the PGA Tour in its legal battle with LIV Golf and could hold implications beyond the antitrust case that has divided the golf world. Abpve. LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman (l) and Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Hosts at Fox News had serious concerns about allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election being made by guests who were allies of former […]

Fox News on Thursday told a judge that Dominion Voting Systems has no evidence to support its “staggering” $1.6 billion damages claim in a defamation lawsuit over the network’s coverage of election-rigging conspiracy theories. Fox made the argument in a counterclaim filed in Delaware Superior Court, the latest development in a legal battle over Fox’s coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

A New York state appeals court rejected Fox News’ bid to dismiss a multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit accusing the network of falsely accusing an electronic voting systems company of helping rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election to favor Joe Biden over Donald Trump. In a 5-0 decision, the Appellate Division in Manhattan said Smartmatic USA alleged in “detailed fashion” how Fox News and some anchors and guests “effectively endorsed and participated in (defamation) with reckless disregard for, or serious doubts about” whether the company engaged in election fraud.

Former President Trump is suing journalist Bob Woodward over interview recordings that Trump alleges he didn’t agree could be included in an audiobook. Trump concedes that he consented to Woodward recording their conversations for the purpose of a book, and gave 19 interviews to the veteran journalist in 2019 and 2020, which Woodward included in his 2020 book Rage. But the former president is arguing the agreement doesn’t cover the inclusion of those audio files in The Trump Tapes, an audiobook collection of the recordings published by Simon & Schuster last year.

The government alleges that Google’s plan to assert dominance has been to “neutralize or eliminate” rivals through acquisitions and to force advertisers to use its products by making it difficult to use competitors’ products.

DirecTV said a California judge has stricken the central claims in a breach of contract lawsuit filed by Herring Networks over DirecTV’s decision to drop the One America News cable network in January 2022. The ruling was made Jan. 13 by Judge John Meyer of the Superior Court of California in San Diego County.

Two former ESPN employees have sued the network and its parent company, Walt Disney, over their terminations in 2021 after refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. In a complaint filed in a Connecticut court on Wednesday, former ESPN reporter Allison Williams (above) and longtime producer Beth Faber alleged that the company made “no serious attempt” to accommodate their COVID-19 exemption requests.

Meta Platforms will pay $725 million to settle class-action claims that it violated users’ privacy by sharing their information with outside developers, including the defunct political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, according to court papers filed late Thursday.

The ruling from Judge Eric Davis is the latest development in Dominion’s suit that accuses Fox News of perpetuating false claims of voter fraud.

On Wednesday, lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems shared some of the strongest evidence yet that some Fox employees knew what they broadcast about the claims was false.

A U.S. District Court in Texas has found that the Super Arab IPTV streaming service pirated a number of channels from Dish Network, is liable for copyright infringement and has been directed to pay the satellite-TV provider $2.1 million. The court said Super Arab IPTV has to stop streaming any content from the Al Arabiya, Al Hayah 1, ART Cima, CBC, CBC Drama, Future TV, Hekayat, LBC, LBCI (aka LDC), and Melody Classic channels.

Ohio has a court date for the first-of-its-kind lawsuit against Google. Delaware County Common Pleas Court set May 14 as the date Attorney General Dave Yost begins his case against the internet search giant in an effort to have it declared a common carrier and subject to government regulation.

The Federal Trade Commission and seven states have sued Google and iHeartMedia over ads by radio announcers who endorsed the Pixel 4 phone, despite never having used the device. Google and iHeartMedia agreed to resolve the allegations by paying $9 million total to the states that sued: Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Texas. (The Texas settlement is only with iHeartMedia; that state has a separate lawsuit pending against Google over the ads.)

A lawsuit filed on behalf of YouTube TV subscribers across four states accuses Disney of using its market power to unfairly jack up prices on their virtual pay TV service. The proposed antitrust suit, filed in a San Francisco federal court on behalf of YouTube TV subscribers in California, Arizona, Indiana and Kentucky, alleges that Disney uses its control of virtual MVPD service Hulu+Live TV, along with its ownership of the most coveted asset in the pay TV ecosystem, ESPN, to dictate pricing in the virtual pay TV market.

Several producers of The Walking Dead have filed a new $200 million lawsuit against AMC Networks to recover profits from the hit series and its spinoffs. In their most recent legal position in California Superior Court, the producers — Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, Charles Eglee and Glenn Mazzara — are claiming that AMC Networks’ $200 million settlement in 2021 with the show’s creator Frank Darabont and CAA, his agency, entitles them to similar treatment.

The former Scrubs and Californication writer — who recently pled not guilty to 18 counts of sexual misconduct in a criminal case — now faces civil litigation from two women seeking punitive damages.

Leslie Moonves and Paramount Global will have to pay $9.75 million to CBS shareholders as a result of sexual misconduct claims in a deal made with the New York attorney general. This is in addition to a $14.75 million settlement as the result of a class action suit that has been awaiting approval by a New York judge.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms is urging a federal appellate court to prevent advertisers from proceeding with a class-action fraud lawsuit over allegedly inflated ad metrics. In papers filed Monday with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Meta Platforms argues that the claims do not lend themselves to class-action treatment, partly because the metrics were allegedly inflated by different proportions for different advertisers.

The head of voting systems company Dominion said Sunday on 60 Minutes that Fox News knew allegations against the company being made by former president Trump and his associates following the 2020 election were untrue but decided to air them anyway.

Suzanne Scott remade Fox News Media into a lucrative consumer brand. But a $1.6 billion defamation suit against the company is testing her strategy and leadership.