The Delaware Chancery Court pressed Fox Corp. and a coalition of public pension plaintiffs Thursday to break a stalemate over the scope of summary judgment discovery, signaling neither side will be allowed to bottleneck the consequential inquiry into director Jacques Nasser's independence from Fox founder Rupert Murdoch.

Vice Chancellor Bonnie W. David said she convened arguments because the briefing left her unclear about what the parties would like her to decide, emphasizing that the summary judgment process cannot begin until both sides agree, or the court orders, basic search parameters, custodian lists and interrogatory obligations.

"What I really want to understand today is what exactly it is that you want me to decide," she told the two parties.

Fox argues that discovery must remain tightly confined to evidence bearing on whether Nasser can impartially consider a derivative demand targeting Murdoch, consistent with the Delaware Supreme Court's direction for limited summary judgment discovery. The plaintiffs counter that the decades-long professional and social relationship between the two men requires a broad evidentiary record, including documents predating Fox's 2019 reorganization.

"One hour deposition is certainly limited under the facts that we have here," Vice Chancellor David said in response to Fox seeking to impose a one hour cap on Nasser's and Murdoch's depositions, adding that she was "not inclined" to limit depositions to an hour.

The fight over discovery is central to whether Fox can secure an early, targeted summary judgment ruling that Nasser is independent, which, if successful, could shut down the stockholder derivative action before reaching the merits. But plaintiffs maintain that independence cannot be resolved without probing more than 20 years of alleged personal, business and philanthropic ties between Nasser and the Murdoch family, and accuse Fox of trying to choke off the very evidence needed to oppose the forthcoming summary judgment motion.

Stockholders first sued in April 2023, alleging Rupert Murdoch, his son Lachlan Murdoch and senior Fox officials knowingly allowed Fox News to "broadcast, promote and perpetuate" false claims about the 2020 election, leading to massive defamation exposure, including a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in 2023. After Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster declined to dismiss the case in December 2024, the matter was reassigned to Vice Chancellor David in February 2025, who ordered summary-judgment briefing solely on whether evidence exists that Nasser lacks independence from Rupert Murdoch.

Representing the individual defendants, Anitha Reddy of Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz argued that plaintiff's discovery requests improperly "treat Lachlan Murdoch as essentially interchangeable with Rupert Murdoch" and the defense "does not believe that the allegations would justify treating Lachlan Murdoch as a custodian on par with Rupert Murdoch."

Reddy said Fox has already agreed to produce all communications between Nasser and Murdoch as far back as they went, but plaintiffs now want broad custodians, third-party communications and interrogatories requiring recollection of every conversation going back decades.

"It does seem clear to me that some of the interrogatories are just impossible to answer," the vice chancellor said. "No person could tell you every conversation they've ever had with someone over a 20 year period."

Plaintiffs' counsel Joel Friedlander of Friedlander & Gorris PA pushed back, saying Fox's approach would leave them with only a thin sliver of the decades-long relationship at issue, undermining their ability to defeat summary judgment. Defendants, he argued, want a record built on selective disclosure followed by strategic memory lapses in abbreviated depositions. He says Fox's team has put up a "stone wall" and hasn't been cooperative in the process.

"It's just my suspicion that defendants do not want an iterative process," he said. "They don't want us to follow up on what they give us."

Vice Chancellor David ordered the parties to meet and confer again on a workable search protocol and indicated she will soon provide written guidance on which interrogatories defendants must answer. If negotiations fail, she instructed both sides to file simultaneous letters and said she would impose a protocol herself.

Representatives for the parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

The stockholders are represented by Joel Friedlander, Jeffrey M. Gorris, Matthew Venuti and Christopher M. Foulds of Friedlander & Gorris PA.

The Fox Corp. parties are represented by Blake Rohrbacher, Kevin M. Gallagher, Sandy Xu, Kyle H. Lachmund and Benjamin O. Allen of Richards Layton & Finger PA, and William A. Savitt, Anitha Reddy and Won S. Shin of Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

Fox Corp. is represented by A. Thompson Bayliss, John M. Seaman, Christopher Fitzpatrick Cannataro and Nicholas F. Mastria of Abrams & Bayliss LLP.

The case is In re: Fox Corp. Derivative Litigation, case number 2023-0418, in the Delaware Chancery Court.