Judge orders Fox to hand over hundreds of documents in shareholders' case

Fox Corp. must turn over hundreds of documents that could shed light on how founder Rupert Murdoch handled major scandals. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP/Invision hide caption

Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corp. must turn over hundreds of documents that could shed light on how he and a key corporate director — the former head of Ford Motor Co. — handled major scandals at his properties over the past two decades.

A Delaware judge issued the guidance Friday in a long-running case brought by Fox Corp. stockholders. The lawsuit was initially filed three years ago in an attempt to hold Murdoch, his eldest son Lachlan (now executive chairman and CEO) and several other board members and executives legally responsible for fostering a business model that has repeatedly exposed the media company to scandal after scandal – and costly litigation.

The case was sparked by a nearly $800 million settlement Fox paid to Dominion Voting Systems, which accused the network of spreading conspiracy theories about fraud in the 2020 election. A similar defamation case brought by another voting tech company, Smartmatic USA, is ongoing. That company is seeking $2.7 billion from Fox.

Media Fox News abruptly parts ways with scandal-tarred star Maria Bartiromo The shareholders' lawsuit also points to an undisclosed settlement with the family of Seth Rich . Fox published and then retracted a story accusing Rich of leaking documents to harm Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and implying that the party was involved in the former Democratic National Committee staffer's shooting death in 2016.

And it notes a phone hacking scandal that rocked Britain over a decade ago and has cost News Corp., another Murdoch media company, some $1.5 billion so far. Fox Corp. was split off from News Corp. in the aftermath to protect the Murdoch American television licenses from potential challenges. The Murdochs more recently have explored merging the two sides of their empire once more.

Now, the shareholders' entire case relies on what their lawyers can learn about the decades-long relationship between Rupert Murdoch and former Ford Motor Co. CEO Jacques Nasser, who has served on various Murdoch corporate boards earning six-figure annual compensation for more than two decades.

Nasser was designated as an independent director on Murdoch's News Corp., 21st Century Fox and Fox Corp., for which he was appointed lead independent director until he stepped down in 2023 — the year Dominion case was settled. The role suggests he would act, when necessary, as a counterweight to the Murdochs, who controlled the company in executive as well as ownership roles.

But the shareholders suing Fox are challenging whether Nasser was acting truly independently.

If the evidence reveals that Nasser is so close to the Murdochs that he would make decisions that could benefit them over the company itself, then lawyers have enough to prove that more than half of Fox's board members were not independent, and the case will likely head to trial.

In a small courtroom in southern Delaware Friday morning, Fox's attorneys tried but failed to convince a judge to let them shield a trove of documents.