A number of major lawsuits head to trial in 2023.
The litigation involves major corporations, political figures, and even a former president.
From Goldman Sachs to Google, Insider looks at some notable names facing trial in the new year.
The New York attorney general’s $250 million lawsuit against former President Donald Trump
New York Attorney General Letitia James’ massive fraud lawsuit against Trump is currently scheduled to go to trial in Manhattan in October 2023 — and Trump himself could end up personally testing.
The lawsuit seeks bar Trump and his family from doing business in New York State and alleges that the Trump Organization fraudulently exaggerated its worth by billions of dollars for years to obtain loans. Trump responded in turn by suing James, alleging she abused her position of power by investigating him.
Experts previously told Insider’s Laura Italiano to expect an “eye-glazing” slog of litigation before the scheduled trial in the New York State Supreme Court next fall, predicting that Trump’s team will fight tooth and nail to delay the matter. That could include potential attempts to swap judges and heel-dragging over motions.
A massive, long-running gender bias lawsuit against Goldman Sachs
A class-action lawsuit against Goldman Sachs is finally slated for trial in June 2023, after 12 years of litigation.
Roughly 1,800 plaintiffs have alleged the multinational investment bank was biased against its female vice presidents and associates, and systematically deprived women of the higher salaries and promotions awarded to men. Some of the plaintiffs also alleged retaliation, wrongful termination, and pregnancy discrimination.
Goldman Sachs has vehemently denied the plaintiffs’ allegations for years and hunted multiple times to cancel the class or remove hundreds of members. The bank recently told Reuters the allegations were “baseless.”
The federal trial will be held in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Google
In a historic case against the search giant Google, the Justice Department alleged the company has been unfairly and illegally monopolizing the online search and ad markets, putting competitors at a massive disadvantage.
“The Google of today is a monopoly gatekeeper for the internet, and one of the wealthiest companies on the planet, with a market value of $1 trillion and annual revenue exceeding $160 billion,” the Justice Department said in its lawsuit, originally filed in 2020 . “Two decades ago, Google became the darling of Silicon Valley as a scrappy startup with an innovative way to search the emerging internet. That Google is long gone.”
Google has repeatedly pushed back against the allegations, calling the lawsuit “deeply flawed” and saying it wouldn’t help consumers.
“To the contrary, it would artificially prop up lower-quality search alternatives, raise phone prices, and make it harder for people to get the search services they want to use,” Google’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, said in a 2020 statement.
Google filed a motion on December 13 asking a judge to toss the Justice Department’s lawsuit altogether. The trial is slated to be held in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in September 2023.
Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp.
In one of many defamation lawsuits filed by Dominion Voting Systems following the 2020 election, its suit against Fox News’ parent company is set for trial in Delaware state court in April 2023.
Dominion has alleged that Fox News and Fox Business made false and defamatory claims that Dominion voting machines were rigged as part of a conspiracy to throw votes for former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden. The legal standard to prove defamation against a media company is high — Dominion must show that Fox personalities were pushing the election fraud narrative on air knowing they weren’t true.
A number of top Fox personalities — including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro — have already been deposited in 2022, and Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and CEO Lachlan Murdoch both sat for deposits in December. Lawyers for Dominion released some of the deposition testimony on December 21, showing that many of the deponents had significant doubts in the election-fraud conspiracy theory.
“I did not believe it for one second,” Hannity tested under oath, according to The New York Times.
Fox News has labeled the Dominion lawsuit an “assault on the First Amendment.”
Dominion has also sued a number of other public figures who baselessly alleged election fraud, including Newsmax, OANN, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
E. Jean Carroll’s rape lawsuit against Trump
In late 2022, the former Elle magazine editor E. Jean Carroll filed her second lawsuit against the former president, alleging that he raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman store 27 years ago, and, more recently, made multiple false statements about Carroll that damaged her reputation. That lawsuit is set to go to trial in the US District Court in the Southern District of New York in April 2023.
Carroll was able to sue under the New York Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily allows people to sue over sexual assault claims that previously fell outside the statute of limitations. Trump has vehemently denied all of Carroll’s allegations and has sought to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the Adult Survivors Act unconstitutionally deprives defendants of due process.
It’s not Carroll’s only lawsuit that’ll get its day in court in 2023. Her initial 2019 lawsuit, which allegations that Trump defamed her by claiming she was lying about the rape allegations, is scheduled for oral arguments in January, when the DC Court of Appeals will decide whether Trump can be sued in his personal capacity for the actions he took while president.
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