The fallout from Fox’s $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit continues: the administrators of New York City’s five municipal pension funds have filed a civil lawsuit against Fox Corporation claiming that its cable propaganda unit breached its duty to protect investor value by broadcasting lies about the 2020 election which ended up costing the company nearly $1 billion, the New York Times reports. A similar fund for the State of Oregon has joined the New York City funds’ suit.
The funds–for municipal workers, teachers, school employees, fire fighters and police–have more than $250 billion in assets, including $28 million in 857,000 shares of Fox Corp. The suit also cites numerous other lawsuits settled or lost under the current management, including numerous sexual harassment suits such as the one filed by one-time Tucker Carlson producer Abby Grossberg, who received $12 million after she sued on gender bias and harassment grounds.
“We are shareholders at a company that, unfortunately, has a longstanding practice of allowing conspiracy theories that its executives and its board know are false to be repeated over and over and over again, despite the very clear and present risk of defamation lawsuits eroding shareholder value,” said Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller, who oversees the pension funds, according to the Times. “And there has been no effort to make governance reforms.”