Fox must hand over documents in shareholders’ case, judge says : NPR

Key Points:

• A Delaware judge has ordered Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corp. to turn over hundreds of documents related to how Murdoch and former Ford CEO Jacques Nasser handled major scandals at Fox over the past two decades, including the $800 million Dominion Voting Systems settlement.
• The shareholder lawsuit alleges that Murdoch, his son Lachlan, and other board members fostered a business model exposing Fox to repeated scandals and costly litigation, including defamation cases and a phone hacking scandal linked to News Corp.
• Central to the case is whether Nasser, who served as lead independent director on Fox's board, acted independently or favored the Murdochs, which could prove that more than half of Fox's board was not truly independent.
• The court ruling compels Fox to provide extensive records, including board meeting minutes, emails, and documents mentioning "phone hacking," which may reveal the Murdochs' influence and past deletion of potentially relevant text messages.
• The case could advance to trial if evidence shows the board's lack of independence, and it may also impact ongoing litigation, such as the $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit by Smartmatic against Fox.