Fox News can get Smartmatic records about Philippines bribery case, court rules

NEW YORK — (AP) — Fox News can get access to some internal documents at the voting-technology company Smartmatic as part of its effort to defend itself against a $2.7 billion civil defamation lawsuit over its coverage of claims of voting fraud during the 2020 presidential election, a New York appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The documents concern a U.S. corruption case about Smartmatic's dealings in the Philippines.

The opinion reversed a lower-court judge's repeated denials of Fox requests to peer into the company's records about the federal inquiry, which led to criminal charges against Smartmatic co-founder Roger Piñate and two other executives.

Smartmatic says the suit is a world away from the criminal case, which alleges the executives conspired to pay over $1 million in bribes to a Filipino official between 2015 and 2018 to secure business there.

Piñate and at least one co-defendant have pleaded not guilty. It’s unclear from court records whether the third executive has entered a plea or has an attorney who can comment on the charges. Smartmatic itself isn't charged and put the defendants on leave.

Florida-based Smartmatic says its business was decimated when Fox aired false claims that the election-tech company helped rig the 2020 voting. Under pressure from Smartmatic, Fox eventually interviewed an election technology expert who refuted the allegations.

The network says it simply reported on newsworthy allegations made by President Donald Trump and his allies, and that Smartmatic is vastly overstating its purported losses.

A five-judge state Appellate Division panel said Fox can get some documents about how the Philippines corruption indictment affected Smartmatic's business, reasoning that the information is “plainly relevant to its current and future lost profits."

In court filings and a recent hearing, lawyers for Fox News and Smartmatic disputed how much relevant material already was turned over.

Hailing Tuesday's ruling, the network said in a statement that evidence “shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News.”

Smartmatic lawyer Erik Connolly said Fox’s “campaign of lies was the number-one cause of Smartmatic’s injuries.”

Smartmatic is suing the network and some current and former on-air hosts, including Jeanine Pirro, newly tapped as top federal prosecutor for the nation's capital. The lawsuit involves shows in which Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell portrayed Smartmatic as part of a broad conspiracy to steal the 2020 vote from Trump. The Republican was then in his first term.

Federal and state election officials, exhaustive reviews in battleground states and Trump's own then-attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden. Nor did they uncover any credible evidence that the vote was tainted. Dozens of judges, including some whom Trump had appointed, rejected his fraud claims.