After Fox was acquired by Disney in March 2019, Murdoch was named as the chairman and CEO of the Fox Corporation. Pending lawsuits Dominion lawsuit Lachlan Murdoch and his father Rupert are currently defendants in a $1.6 billion lawsuit filed by voting machine maker Dominion on March 26, 2021, for knowingly and maliciously spreading a false narrative accusing Dominion of election fraud. Dominion claims in the aftermath of Donald Trump's loss of the 2020 election, Fox News began to lose viewership and was negatively impacted as President Trump criticized Fox News and bolstered competitors that would spread his narrative of fraud. Dominion continued that, under the direction of Lachlan Murdoch, Fox News connected Dominion with unsubstantiated fraud and intentionally provided a platform for guests that Fox News' hosts knew were making false and defamatory statements, while Fox News' hosts endorsed, repeated and amplified known defamatory and false statements. Fox News Corporation requested that the case be dismissed and on December 16, 2021 the court rejected the request of Fox News with the opinion that "Dominion adequately pleaded actual malice by Fox News." June 6, 2022 Fox News Corp asked Judge Eric M. Davis to drop the lawsuit. In his opinion Judge Davis denied the request with the opinion that Dominion had shown enough evidence of actual malice on behalf of Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch of Fox Corporation to allow the case to continue. Smartmatic lawsuit In a lawsuit similar to Dominion's, voting machine maker Smartmatic filed a lawsuit implicating both Lachlan Murdoch and his father Rupert for 2.7 billion dollars on February 4, 2021. Smartmatic claims "Fox News engaged in conspiracy to spread disinformation about Smartmatic. They lied, and did so knowingly and intentionally." In March 2022, Justice David Cohen allowed the removal of several hosts as co-defendants but rejected Fox's motion for dismissal of the suit allowing it to go to the discovery phase. In a second attempt from Fox News to dismiss the lawsuit, Justice David Cohen again rejected Fox's request and gave the opinion that Smartmatic had showed a "substantial basis" for their claim that Fox News "showed a reckless disregard for the truth." Both Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch's emails are being sought in discovery to show the extent to which they knew their statements were false. Crikey controversy Lachlan Murdoch sent a series of legal threats to the Crikey website after political editor Bernard Keane tied