Newsmax has reached a settlement with election systems company Smartmatic, averting a defamation trial that was set to start next week.

The terms were not disclosed.

Smartmatic had sued the outlet over its amplification of claims that it was involved in rigging of the 2020 election, even though, in reality, the election systems company was only providing services in Los Angeles County.

“Newsmax is pleased to announce it has resolved the litigation brought by Smartmatic through a confidential settlement,” the media outlet said in a statement.

Smartmatic said, “We are very pleased to have secured the completion of the case against Newsmax.”

Jury selection started today in Delaware Superior Court, and the trial was scheduled to begin on Monday. The judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, also presided over Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox, which settled last year just as a trial was to start. The network agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million.

Smartmatic sued Newsmax in November, 2021, claiming that as the network sought a larger audience, it published dozens of reports indicating that Smartmatic was in a “criminal conspiracy” to rig the results of the election, “and that its technology and software were used to switch votes from former President Trump to now President Biden.”

The judge in recent weeks issued a series of rulings that greatly impacted the nature of the trial — and likely influenced the desire of the parties to settle.

In a summary judgment ruling issued earlier this month, Davis ruled that statements that ran on Newsmax “regarding Smartmatic software or voting machines altering the results of the Election are factually false. The reports and investigations conducted by multiple state and federal agencies since the Election universally come to the same result.”

But he left it up to a jury to decide if Newsmax was liable for actual malice, the threshold required for proving a defamation claim. Davis said that the jury would have to determine if “Newsmax was doing what media organizations typically do—inform the public of newsworthy events” or if the media outlet did “purposely avoid the truth and defame Smartmatic.”

Earlier this week, though, Davis ruled that Smartmatic would not be able to collect punitive damages if a jury ruled in its favor, something that likely greatly reduced the amount that the election systems company would be able to recover. The judge wrote that Florida law, which is the governing standard in the case, required that plaintiffs show that defendants engaged in “express malice,” or a specific intent to harm, in order to collect punitive damages. Davis had already rejected claims that Newsmax had done so.

Smartmatic had also sued another outlet on the right, One America News Network, but that case settled earlier this year and terms also were not disclosed. Another lawsuit, against Fox, is still pending in New York Supreme Court.

In its statement today, Smartmatic said, “We are now looking forward to our day in court against Fox Corp. and Fox News for their disinformation campaign. Lying to the American people has consequences. Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable.”

Fox has said that its coverage was protected by the First Amendment, and that it was merely covering Trump’s claims that the election was stolen from him.

In a statement, Fox said that Smartmatic “unsurprisingly chose to settle its case with Newsmax on the eve of trial after a series of major setbacks devastated its case,” citing the indictments, the prohibition on punitive damages and the slashing of its damages claims from $1.7 billion to $370 million.

“Smartmatic’s claims against Fox are similarly impaired, unsupported by the facts and intended to chill First Amendment freedoms,” Fox said.

As its case proceeded, Newsmax had argued that Smartmatic’s reputation had already suffered because of its ties in the past to the Venezuelan government in the 2004 election. In August, a federal grand jury in Florida indicted Smartmatic executives on allegations related to a bribery scheme in the Philippines. Smartmatic said that the employees indicted were placed on leave. “No voter fraud has been alleged and Smartmatic is not indicted,” the company said.

Still, a settlement saves Newsmax from the prospect of its major news personalities testifying before a jury, where they were likely to be presented with questions of their prior knowledge that election rigging claims were not credible, yet endorsed them anyway.

In his summary judgment ruling earlier this month, Davis, among other things, cited a clip in which Newsmax personality Greg Kelly interviewed Sidney Powell, one of the leading purveyors of the claim that the election was rigged.

“We have so much evidence I feel like it’s coming in through a firehose,” Powell said in one clip.

Kelly responded, “I believe her and I don’t believe the critics and the naysayers. Why? Because quite frankly, they don’t deserve credibility anymore.”

That said, the judge also indicated that he could still decide that some of the statements in question were matters of opinion, shielding Newsmax from liability.