Top lawyer at Fox Corp. to step down after overseeing $787M settlement in Dominion defamation case

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox Corp. said Friday that its chief legal officer who oversaw a $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over defamation allegations is leaving the company.

Viet Dinh, Fox’s chief legal and policy officer, will step down effective Dec. 31, the New York-based company said in a statement. He will remain a “special advisor” to Fox Corp., it added.

Fox News, a unit of Fox Corp., agreed to settle the case brought by the voting machine producer in mid-April following weeks of pretrial disclosures that revealed the network had aired false claims about the 2020 U.S. presidential election, even though many within the company knew they were not true.

The company did not say why Dinh was leaving Fox Corp. Brian Nick, a spokesman for Fox, said the company had no comment beyond the statement.

Records released as part of the lawsuit showed Fox aired the claims in part to win back viewers who were fleeing the network after it correctly called hotly contested Arizona for Democrat Joe Biden on election night. One Fox Corp. vice president called the claims “MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS.”

During a deposition, Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch testified that he believed the 2020 election was fair and had not been stolen from former President Donald Trump.