Rupert Murdoch’s son Lachlan drops defamation lawsuit against Crikey after Dominion settlement

Billionaire businessman Rupert Murdoch’s son Lachlan has dropped his defamation lawsuit against independent Australian news website Crikey. 

The co-chairman of News Corp and CEO of Fox Corporation had claimed Crikey defamed him in June 2022 in an article written by its political editor.

That opinion piece, penned by Bernard Keane, referred to the Murdoch family as ‘unindicted co-conspirators’ in the January 6, 2021 riots at the US Capitol.

In a statement issued on Friday morning, Mr Murdoch’s lawyer John Churchill said he had filed a notice of discontinuance with the Federal Court of Australia.

‘It is a matter of public record that Crikey admits that there is no truth to the imputations that were made about Mr Murdoch in the article,’ Mr Churchill said.

‘In their latest attempt to change their defence strategy, Crikey has tried to introduce thousands of pages of documents from a defamation case in another jurisdiction, which has now settled.’

That was a reference to News Corp settling a separate lawsuit with voting firm Dominion for AUD$1.2billion (USD$787.5million) just days ago.

News settled after Dominion alleged the Murdoch-owned Fox News network aired false claims that its machines were used to rig the 2020 presidential election.

The agreement to end the case avoided a trial at which Rupert Murdoch and primetime Fox News stars including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity would have been compelled to testify in open court.

Mr Churchill said Crikey had attempted to use the Dominion law suit to suggest Fox News caused the US Capitol riots.

‘In that case, in the US state of Delaware, the trial judge ruled the events of January 6, 2021, in the US Capitol, were not relevant,’ Mr Churchill said. 

‘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… ‘

In a statement issued on Friday morning, Mr Murdoch’s lawyer John Churchill said he had filed a notice of discontinuance with the Federal Court of Australia. Rupert Murdoch is pictured

Mr Churchill said Crikey had nonetheless sought to make that argument in the Federal Court of Australia.  

‘Mr Murdoch remains confident that the court would ultimately find in his favour,’ he said. 

‘However he 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.’ 

Crikey had maintained its opinion piece was not defamatory and its contents were in the public interest.

In its most recent defence the publisher claimed Fox News ‘promoted and peddled Trump’s lie of the stolen election despite Lachlan Murdoch knowing it was false’. 

Fox is still facing a USD$2.7billion lawsuit from another voting technology company, Smartmatic, over its coverage of debunked election-rigging claims.