By Tom Housden
in Sydney
Media mogul Lachlan Murdoch has dropped his defamation case against Australian news site Crikey, which linked his family to the US Capitol attack.
It comes days after Fox News paid a large settlement to vote machine firm Dominion over false claims the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Lawyers for the Fox Corporation boss on Friday said continuing the lawsuit would only benefit the Crikey site.
Crikey called it a substantial victory for public interest journalism.
Mr Murdoch launched legal action against Crikey last year over an opinion piece he said had made "false" and "scandalous" allegations - that he illegally conspired with the former US president to incite a "murderous" mob to march into Washington DC on 6 January 2021.
In a statement, his lawyer John Churchill said the mogul remained confident that a trial - which had been scheduled for October- would have ruled in his favour.
"However he does not wish to further enable Crikey's use of the court to litigate a case from another jurisdiction that has already been settled and facilitate a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers and boost their profits," Mr Churchill said.
Australia has been called "the defamation capital of the world" by legal experts, due to strict local laws which allow only limited defences for defamation.
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