Michael Jackson responded to HBO’s Leaving Neverland documentary with a lawsuit.

The estate claimed the network was breaching a 27-year-old defamation contract which was inked for HBO to air the singer’s documentary connected to his Dangerous album. The King of Pop’s heirs filed a notion to invoke an arbitration clause

As a result, the network moved the case from state to federal and claimed the deal was outdated, and the estate counter-filed a notion to get the case back to the state.

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HBO stated that Michael Jackson’s Estate legal motion was a “transparent effort to bolster their publicity campaign against the documentary.” The network assured that there are no existing contracts that will affect the controversial docu-series.

HBO’s lawyers argued for a federal judge to determine the “gateway issues of validity and arbitrability.” An act, Michael Jackson’s estate called “classic tautology.”

Ultimately the judge denied both notions and HBO took home the W. But U.S. District Court Judge George H. Wu called for both parties to bring in evidence on the issue of arbitration.

The post Michael Jackson’s Estate Loses Round 1 of ‘Leaving Neverland’ Lawsuit With HBO appeared first on The Source.

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