Lawyers for the Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, are looking to transfer a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the former anchor Gretchen Carlson to a New York federal court, a move her lawyers immediately dismissed as “judge shopping.”
In papers filed on Friday, Mr. Ailes’s lawyers argued that the case should be heard in federal court in Manhattan — rather than the New Jersey federal court that it was moved to last week — and that the matter should be resolved in arbitration, a change that would effectively shield the proceedings from public scrutiny.
There could be another reason for the request. Thomas F. Doherty, a partner in the labor practice of the New Jersey law firm McCarter & English, said that a New Jersey court “may lack the authority to compel arbitration in New York.” Mr. Ailes, he explained, would need to transfer the case to pursue an arbitration in New York, which is where Ms. Carlson’s contract stipulates any arbitration case would have to take place.