Fox Corp Lachlan Murdoch dropped a defamation lawsuit against an Australian news site over an opinion piece he said accused him of complicity in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying the defendant was trying to generate publicity.
Reuters reports Murdoch's lawyer in Australia said his client was confident he would have won the suit against online publisher Private Media and its site Crikey, but wanted to stop it from re-airing claims from a separate U.S. lawsuit involving Fox and the events of Jan. 6, which Fox paid $785.5 million to settle three days earlier.
"Mr Murdoch ... does not wish to further enable Crikey's use of the court to litigate a case from another jurisdiction that has already been settled, and facilitate a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers and boost their profits," the lawyer, John Churchill, said in a statement.
A lawyer for Private Media, Michael Bradley, said Murdoch had discontinued his Federal Court claim without warning and that Murdoch would pay Private Media's costs. He declined to say how much those costs were.
"It's complete vindication of their stand on the principle of press freedom," Bradley said in an email, referring to Crikey and its employees.
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