Newsmax agreed to pay Smartmatic $40 million as part of a settlement last year following the voting technology company’s election defamation lawsuit against the right-wing news outlet, according to a new regulatory filing.
The settlement, reached in September, included a cash payment and an option to purchase stock in Newsmax, the media company said in its filing. Newsmax said payments totaling $20 million have already been made, with the rest coming before July.
“Management believes the settlement with Smartmatic will, subject to the payment of all consideration in a timely manner, eliminate future legal expenses the Company would have expected to bear related to this suit, which could have included costly appellate legal actions and other matters,” Newsmax wrote.
Newsmax did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night.
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Details of the payments provide insight into the confidential settlement agreement that were not publicly available last year. The 2021 lawsuit centered on Newsmax’s false claims that Smartmatic’s machines manipulated the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden. A deal was reached shortly before the case was set to go to trial.
After the settlement last year, Newsmax said in a statement that it “acknowledges that the Court found that ‘allegations regarding whether the [2020 U.S. presidential election] and its results were somehow altered or manipulated by Smartmatic are factually false/untrue.’”
Smartmatic settled a related defamation lawsuit in April against One America News for a sum that also was not disclosed publicly.
J. Erik Connolly, an external lawyer for Smartmatic, said in a statement Thursday that the company is now focused on a similar case against Fox News.
“We look forward to presenting our evidence to a jury and finally having the opportunity to hold Fox accountable for its harmful actions,” Connolly said.
Fox has said it covered newsworthy events and people surrounding the 2020 election.
Fox News’ parent company, Fox Corp., reached a settlement in 2023 to pay $787.5 million to the election technology company Dominion Voting Systems to settle defamation claims.
