Washington
CNN
—
The pro-Trump cable channel Newsmax agreed to pay $40 million in a confidential settlement last year to end a 2020 election-related defamation lawsuit brought by voting technology company Smartmatic, according to regulatory filings recently made public.
Newsmax and Smartmatic settled the case in September, on the eve of a jury trial in Delaware. But the $40 million figure was secret until Newsmax revealed the number in a public filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as the network gears up for its initial public offering.
The payment is less than what Smartmatic hoped to win at trial, and it’s far less than the whopping $787 million Fox News paid in 2023 to settle a similar case with Dominion Voting Systems. The two voting companies sued several right-ring networks and pro-Trump figures after they falsely accused the companies of rigging the 2020 election against Donald Trump.
A Newsmax spokesman declined to comment further on the details of the settlement.
In the SEC filing, Newsmax said the settlement with Smartmatic will “eliminate future legal expenses the company would have expected to bear related to this suit, which could have included costly appellate legal actions.” Newsmax also said it’s still “vigorously defending” itself in an ongoing similar lawsuit from Dominion, which slated to go to trial next month.
The conservative network says it’s on track to go public by the end of March, and said it has raised about $225 million as part of its pre-IPO preferred offering to investors. As part of the settlement, Smartmatic will get some Newsmax equity shares, according to the SEC filing.
Smartmatic declined to comment on the settlement and said it’s looking ahead to its case against Fox News, which on track for a potential high-stakes trial this year in New York.
“We are now focused on our litigation against Fox News for defaming Smartmatic and knowingly lying to their viewers about Smartmatic’s role in the 2020 election,” Smartmatic’s lead attorney Erik Connolly said in a statement. “We look forward to presenting our evidence to a jury and finally having the opportunity to hold Fox accountable for its harmful actions.”
Fox News denies any wrongdoing and maintains that its 2020 election coverage was fully protected by the First Amendment. CNN reached out to a Fox spokesperson for comment.
