Fox Settlement – Another Price for Poor Governance

Twenty-First Century Fox investors are once again paying a price for poor governance. The media company controlled by Rupert Murdoch settled a high-profile lawsuit against former TV boss Roger Ailes as accusations of his sexual peccadilloes snowball. Like the phone-hacking scandal in the UK a few years ago, it’s another example of lax oversight abetted by a dual-class share structure. Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson claimed that Ailes, the chief architect of the 20-year-old news network, fired her because she never returned his lusty advances. Worse, she accused him of long fostering an atmosphere hostile to women. More female employees came forward with their own stories after Fox hired an outside law firm to investigate. Carlson “was not treated with the respect and dignity that she and all of our colleagues deserve,” Fox said about the settlement, which is worth $20 million.