Michael Jackson’s estate wins appeal in ‘Leaving Neverland’ suit against HBO

A federal appeals court panel sided with Michael Jackson’s estate Monday, deciding HBO must arbitrate a dispute over its Emmy-winning 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland.”

The estate sued HBO for $100 million in March 2019, saying the documentary violated a broad nondisparagement provision included in a 1992 deal to air Jackson’s “Live in Bucharest” concert from his “Dangerous” tour.

A lower court ordered the case to arbitration last year, but HBO appealed, saying the 1992 contract had expired and had no “continuing validity.”

Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson


Michael Jackson (AFP/)

The decision Monday from the 9th Circuit rejected the appeal and said arbitration should decide whether or not the estate’s claims deserve a remedy.


The court found that the 1992 contract included “detailed and stringent confidentiality provisions explicitly restraining HBO ‘either during or after HBO’s contact’ with Jackson from disclosing ‘any information relating to … [his] personal life.’ ”


“An arbitration clause can still bind the parties, even if the parties fully performed the contract years ago,” the panel wrote.

Judges Richard Paez, Lawrence VanDyke and Karin Immergut stressed they were not ruling on the substance of the estate’s claims, only the right of estate lawyers to make their case in arbitration.

“We may only identify whether the parties agreed to arbitrate such claims; it is for the arbitrator to decide whether those claims are meritorious,” the panel wrote.

HBO can appeal the ruling to the full 9th Circuit.

“It’s time for HBO to answer for its violation of its obligations to Michael Jackson,” estate lawyers Howard Weitzman and Jonathan Steinsapir said in a statement Monday.

“Leaving Neverland” tells the story of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, two former child performers who say Jackson groomed and sexually abused them as minors.

The estate previously tried to get HBO to drop the project and compared its airing to a “public lynching.”

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