Stout provided dispute consulting services to Dominion Voting Systems in connection with its allegation that Fox News published false and defamatory statements about Dominion following the 2020 presidential election. Specifically, these statements claimed that Dominion committed election fraud, manipulated vote counts through its software and algorithms, was founded in Venezuela to rig elections for dictator Hugo Chavez, and paid kickbacks to government officials who used the machines in the 2020 presidential election. In his decision, on Dominion’s motion for summary judgment, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis found “that it is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”

As a result of the defamation, Dominion suffered a diminution in its business value, missed out on operational efficiencies and growth opportunities, and incurred substantial out-of-pocket costs.

Stout was retained by Dominion to quantify damages and testify to those opinions. Stout conducted an in-depth analysis of Dominion’s business and modeled the enterprise value of Dominion both “but-for” and after the defamation. Furthermore, Stout analyzed the additional value Dominion could have generated given plans the company had in place prior to the defamation. Stout was uniquely positioned to perform these damage analyses given the team’s breadth of experience with valuations and defamation claims.

On the first day of trial, just as opening statements were to begin, the parties reached a settlement in which Fox agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million. This is one of the largest publicly known settlements in a defamation case in U.S. history.

Stout was retained by Susman Godfrey LLP, counsel for Dominion.