The conservative Newsmax cable news channel will pay $ 67 million to resolve a defamation demand presented by the Dominion Voting Machine Company on the statements without foundation that the 2020 presidential elections were manipulated, according to a new regulatory presentation.
The agreement avoids what it promised to be a high profile trial.
Newsmax and Dominion voting systems agreed on Friday, according to a presentation of the stock exchange and values commission. Payments will be made in three installments in January 2027, according to the presentation.
“We are pleased to have resolved this matter,” said a Dominion spokesman in response to a request for comments.
In a statement, Newsmax said that “he believed that it was of vital importance for the American people to listen to both sides of the electoral disputes that arose in 2020”.
“We support our coverage as fair, balanced and made within the professional standards of journalism,” the company added in part.
There were no additional details immediately available through the Judicial Registry System in Delaware, where the defamation demand was filed.
In a complaint filed in August 2021, Dominion accused Newsmax of having “manufactured, backed, repeated and transmitted a series of verifiably false but devastating lies on the domain” during and after the 2020 elections.
The “extravagant and crazy fictions” included that Dominion “committed electoral fraud by manipulating the 2020 presidential elections” and “paid bribes to government officials,” according to the complaint.
This year, a Judge of Delaware ruled that Newsmax had defamed Dominion, but said that a jury must decide whether the conservative news brand had done it with “real malice”, which must be tested for a public figure to succeed in a case of defamation.
Newsmax agreed to pay $ 40 million to Smartmatic voting technology to solve another demand for electoral defamation.
Newsmax is not the only conservative cable news channel that faced legal actions on the content transmitted around the 2020 elections. Dominion and Fox News reached an amazing agreement of $ 787.5 million in April 2023 hours before a jury of the trial is jur.
