Court To Smartmatic: Did Election Reporting Cause Reputational Harm Or Was It Bribery Probe? Let’s See Docs
Smartmatic, a global voting software company, must provide Fox News with certain documents as the news company defends itself in a years-long defamation lawsuit brought on the heels of the 2020 presidential election, a court ruled.
Smartmatic, seeking $2.7 billion in damages, accuses Fox of soiling the company’s reputation, saying Fox reported without evidence that the company’s software had a role in rigging the 2020 election.
While the case with Fox was ongoing, Smartmatic was being investigated by a federal grand jury on another matter.
The U.S. Department of Justice criminally indicted three company executives in a “bribery and money laundering scheme to retain and obtain business related to the 2016 Philippine elections” in August 2024. The DOJ said company officials paid $1 million in bribes, allegedly to get contracts to provide voting machines and election services.
To hide the corrupt payments within Smartmatic, the DOJ said, indicted company officials “used coded language to refer to the slush fund and caused the creation of fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements to justify transfers. The co-conspirators then allegedly laundered funds related to the bribery scheme through bank accounts located in Asia, Europe, and the United States, including in the Southern District of Florida.”
Fox wanted to see documents from Smartmatic’s bribery case to use in its defense. A court denied that request in 2024. But this week, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department reversed that decision, directing Smartmatic to share documents and communications showing the effect the DOJ allegations had on Smartmatic’s business.
“We are pleased with the Court’s ruling that materials about Smartmatic executives’ indictments are ‘plainly relevant’ to its lack of damages,” Fox News said in a statement. “The factual evidence shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News and that Smartmatic grossly inflated its damage claims to generate headlines and chill free speech.”
Because Smartmatic seeks special damages for lost profits, the order notes the company is required to “identify the actual economic losses that were caused by the alleged defamatory statements,” and provide those documents.
Fox maintains there are other reasons Smartmatic’s business declined unrelated to its reporting, such as the DOJ’s criminal charges.
Reached for comment, a Smartmatic representative directed The Federalist to a press release characterizing the court’s decision as “grant[ing] Fox limited discovery to which Smartmatic had already agreed.” In the release, Erik Connolly, an attorney for Smartmatic, claimed, “Fox lost this discovery battle before the Court even ruled, and the discovery that Smartmatic has already produced shows that Fox’s campaign of lies was the number one cause of Smartmatic’s injuries. Fox demanded discovery it wasn’t entitled to, then tried to spin its retreat as a win. … Fox trying to blame anyone other than itself for Smartmatic’s injuries is just more lies from Fox.”
Smartmatic is involved in numerous defamation lawsuits, which it tracks on its website.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
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