Fox hit with another 'significant' lawsuit over false claims in 2020 election: report

Investors of the Fox Corp. networks have looked like they were going to sue the company since their court deal with Dominion Voting Systems and ongoing litigation with Smartmatic. The stock price fell after the settlement was announced.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that among the investors in Fox was the New York Pension funds. They are now suing Fox and the board of directors saying that they had a duty to shareholders to be transparent about the legal crisis that came from their broadcast of 2020 election lies.

"The lawsuit, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery, is the most significant shareholder action since Fox settled a blockbuster defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems in April for $787.5 million. The city’s five pension funds represent nearly 800,000 current and retired workers and are worth $253 billion," the report said.

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“We are shareholders at a company that, unfortunately, has a longstanding practice of allowing conspiracy theories that its executives and its board know are false to be repeated over and over and over again, despite the very clear and present risk of defamation lawsuits eroding shareholder value,” said Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller. He oversees the pension funds, though it's unclear who made the decision on investing in Fox Corp. “And there has been no effort to make governance reforms.”

The pension funds had about 857,000 shares in the network. The value as of July 31 was $28.10 million. At its peak after the 2020 election and the COVID crash rebounded in March 2021, Fox was at $42.93. It would have put the value of the funds at $36.79 million.

The state of Oregon pension fund is also joining the lawsuit.

Read the full report here.