Fox News’ parent company, 21st Century Fox, on Monday reached a settlement with company shareholders that requires third-party insurers to pay 21st Century Fox $90 million to help recoup financial damage cause by Fox News’ sexual harassment scandal.
The company also agreed to establish a committee at Fox News tasked with creating an inclusive workplace called the Fox News Workplace Professionalism and Inclusion Council as part of the settlement, 21st Century Fox announced on Monday.
“The Workplace Council gives our management team access to a brain trust of experts with deep and diverse experiences in workplace issues,” Fox News Channel Co-President Jack Abernethy said in a statement Monday. “We look forward to benefiting from their collective guidance.”
The settlement reached Monday resolves a complaint filed by the City of Monroe Employees’ Retirement System, a 21st Century Fox shareholder.
The complaint filed by the City of Monroe Employees’ Retirement System notes that there was a “systematic, decades-long culture of sexual harassment, racial discrimination, and retaliation that led to a hostile work environment at Fox News Channel” and claims that executives did not do enough to address those issues. The complaint argues that the publicity about the sexual harassment at Fox News, as well as the large settlements paid to accusers, caused financial harm to the company.
The settlement requires insurers representing Roger Ailes’ estate and Fox News officers, including Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch and James Murdoch, to pay $90 million to 21st Century Fox for the benefit of the company’s shareholders. It also mandates the establishment of the workplace council. The defendants did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.
In its statement announcing the settlement, 21st Century Fox said that the council will “will advise Fox News and its senior management in its ongoing efforts to ensure a proper workplace environment for all employees and guests, strengthen reporting practices for wrongdoing, enhance HR training on workplace behavior, and further recruitment and advancement of women and minorities.”
Trump: This is just another step in the oppression of The White Man.
Okay, I’m a little bit, shall we say, under the influence right now, but can someone tell me what this means? It’s sounds like 21st Century Fox gets an ever so tasty $90 million insurance payout (profit?) for Fox News’ sexual harassment.
I’m trying, but nope, I can’t get my head around it. (No, that’s not snark.)
And Trump marches on unscathed by the 16 or so accusers. His indiscretions seem to be of no interest to the media or the public. Why?
Not 21st Century Fox for itself and its founders, but rather, 21st Century Fox was sued by one or more of its shareholders, being the City of Monroe Employees Retirement System.
It is likely that pension plan claimed that the sexual harassment/assault settlement payments, that were approved and paid out without third party oversight, were contrary to the best interests of 21st Century Fox’ shareholders (likely a breach of fiduciary duty claim and/or conflict of interest since they benefitted Fox News, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly and other perps), depleting stock value and corporate assets, for personal self-interested reasons, and not for valid corporate purposes.
In theory, it means that Fox shareholders will be made whole from the damage done by Fox managers. The money will supposedly go to anti-harassment stuff so that this won’t happen again. But the insurance premiums were almost certainly paid by Fox in the first place as part of the C-suite benefits package…
So ultimately it’s the outside insurance companies who pay, and who will be savvier in setting premiums for such policies in the future. (Which could actually be a powerful force against workplace sexual harassment – nobody really listens to the threat of lawsuits, and settlements can be hushed up and hidden, but when your insurance company tells you to do something different or they’ll drop coverage that makes waves.)