Fox pays a high price in landmark defamation case

Hello from London. Fox News has agreed to pay a historic?$787.5mn to settle a landmark defamation case?relating to Donald Trump’s 2020 US presidential election loss. Voting machine maker Dominion accused the Rupert Murdoch-owned channel of broadcasting false allegations that it had engaged in vote-rigging. In the words of Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson, “the truth matters”.

The six-week trial was moments from getting under way when the parties announced the last-minute deal — one of the biggest defamation awards in US history. Reporting from outside the court in Wilmington, US legal correspondent Joe Miller asks?why Fox threw in the towel at the last moment.

My choices this week

1. Deadly violence has erupted in Sudan, ignited by a power struggle between the country’s president and vice-president. With hundreds already killed,?international actors must push for a ceasefire immediately, writes the FT’s editorial board.
2. “We’re trying to do capitalism without any capital.”?In the first part of our series on the crisis in European equities, we ask why UK pension funds started shunning equities in favour of safer assets, and how their risk aversion has left the UK listing market moribund.?(Free to read)
3. Is the US losing global influence??In this thought-provoking column, the FT’s chief foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman sketches the boundaries of a new global division exposed by the war in Ukraine.
4. All eyes have been on US bank revenues this week, following last month’s banking turmoil. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were both hit by a trading slowdown and MS chief James Gorman warned that?investment banking may not recover for some time.
5. Who has access to top-secret US intelligence??Last week, a low-ranking US Air Guardsman was charged with leaking Pentagon secrets to social media. We explore how the information ended up at his fingertips — and if the US should brace for more of the same.?(Free to read)
6. Drug manufacturers are facing “regulatory chaos” after a Texas federal judge pulled approval for abortion drug mifepristone. US financial editor Brooke Masters explores the?worrying consequences for innovators.

Thanks for reading,

Roula

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