Fox News sued Smartmatic Corp. for allegedly exaggerating how much financial damage resulted from false reports that the voting technology company had rigged the 2020 election against then-President Donald Trump.
Bloomberg reports the complaint, filed Thursday in New York state court, widens a legal battle that began last year when Smartmatic brought a $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox for repeatedly airing unverified claims by Trump and others of a vast conspiracy to flip votes away from him.
Fox now alleges in a so-called counterclaim that Smartmatic’s lawsuit falsely asserted that the voting technology company “stood to make nearly $2 billion in annual revenue in 2025.” According to Fox, that’s more than four times Smartmatic’s highest reported revenues within the past nine years.
Trump and his supporters have continued to push his conspiracy theory despite it being widely debunked by U.S. intelligence officials and judges who tossed out Republican challenges to the election results. The falsehood ultimately helped trigger the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year.
Fox claims the alleged exaggerations violate New York’s Anti Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation statute, known as an anti-SLAPP law, which bars the filing of cases intended to chill free speech.
Fox’s request to dismiss the suit was denied earlier this month. Justice David Cohen in Manhattan ruled Smartmatic had “adequately pleaded” its claims that Fox “acted with actual malice” by broadcasting interviews with Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a longtime attorney for the ex-president.
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