Lachlan Murdoch calls off Crikey defamation case

The NewsCorp co-chair has revoked the defamation action, saying he does not wish to further enable Crikey to manipulate court proceedings into ‘a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers’.

Lachlan Murdoch has discontinued defamation action against Crikey publisher Private Media.

Lachlan Murdoch has discontinued defamation action against Crikey publisher Private Media, saying he does not wish to further enable the media company to manipulate court proceedings into “a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers and boost their profits”.

Mr Murdoch’s lawyer, John Churchill, on Friday announced the NewsCorp co-chair would be revoking a defamation case against the publisher, after Crikey had tried to introduce thousands of irrelevant documents regarding the now-settled Dominion Voting Systems defamation case in the US, as part of a new attempt to change their defence strategy.

“In that case, in the US state of Delaware, the trial judge ruled the events of January 6, 2021, in the US Capitol, were not relevant,” Mr Churchill said in a media statement.

“Further, the plaintiff Dominion Voting Systems made clear it would not argue that Fox News caused the events of January 6, and at no point did it ever argue that Mr Murdoch was personally responsible for the events of January 6. Yet this is what Crikey’s article alleged and what Crikey is attempting to argue in Australia.”

The basis of Mr Murdoch’s defamation case regarded an article published by Crikey in which it was claimed the Murdochs were “co-conspirators” during the January 6 riots launched by supporters of former US president Donald Trump.

Mr Murdoch alleged the article caused serious harm to his reputation by implying he conspired with Mr Trump to incite a mob to march on the Capitol and commit “various indictable offences”. He rebuffed Crikey’s claims that it was a piece of “public interest journalism”.

Earlier this year, the court heard Crikey effectively “begged to be sued” over the article, using the case to sell subscriptions worth $500,000, promote an online fundraising campaign and sell merchandise.

Crikey admitted there was “no truth to the imputations that were made about Mr Murdoch in the article,” Mr Churchill said.

“Mr Murdoch remains confident that the court would ultimately find in his favour, however he 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.”