HBO shoots back at the Michael Jackson estate’s $100 million lawsuit regarding the divisive documentary Leaving Neverland.
In their original filing, the estate asserts that by airing Leaving Neverland, which accuses Jackson of allegedly sexually abusing young boys, the network broke the terms of a 1992 contract made between Jackson and HBO regarding a concert special. According to what one of the estate’s lawyers, Howard Weitzman, told Deadline, the network “breached its agreement not to disparage Michael Jackson by producing and selling to the public a one-sided marathon of unvetted propaganda to shamelessly exploit an innocent man no longer here to defend himself.”
HBO’s lawyers have now put out a statement against this argument, saying that the argument only serves their “publicity campaign.”
“Petitioners’ purported basis for their claims is a single non-disparagement sentence buried in a confidentiality rider to a more than 26-year-old expired and entirely unrelated contract,” said HBO’s attorneys, according to Deadline. “Petitioners’ effort to ‘publicly’ arbitrate these issues appears to be a part of a transparent effort to bolster their publicity campaign against the documentary, but that undertaking is as poorly conceived as the claims themselves.”
“This Court should deny Petitioners’ Motion, find the 1992 Agreement does not contain a valid agreement to arbitrate the instant dispute, and confirm that any claim that Petitioners might seek to bring in any forum against HBO or Leaving Neverland based on the 1992 Agreement would not be actionable,” they continued. “Petitioners do not, and cannot allege that any information HBO obtained during the course of performing the 1992 Agreement, let alone any confidential information or trade secrets, was provided to the filmmakers. Thus by the express language of the contract itself, Leaving Neverland is categorically outside the scope of the Confidentiality Provisions.”
Jackson Estate lawyer Bryan Freedman responded to Deadline about HBO’s legal move, saying it “clearly shows that they are afraid to have this matter adjudicated.” He also said that the estate wants “an arbitration open to the public for all to see.”
“If HBO thinks the contract does not apply or is expired then why are they opposing adjudicating it?” he continued. “The reason why is because they know they were complicit in this one-sided farce of a money grab that clearly violates the agreement.”
According to the report, the two sides will be present in front of a judge on May 23.
Leaving Neverland debuted at Sundance in January. The documentary subsequently aired on HBO in March, wrapping with a special hosted by Oprah Winfrey.
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Photo credit: HBO
