How Trump’s BBC lawsuit could play out as trial date is set
This article was first published on November 12, 2025 and is currently being republished: Independent after hearing date set President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC in Florida court allegations of defamation and violation of trade practices.
The BBC is the latest media outlet to be targeted by Donald Trump’s highly belligerent machine. The tension over the Panorama episode, which included a misleadingly edited clip of the US president’s speech on January 6, 2021, led to the resignation of two BBC executives and Trump threatening to sue the BBC for $1 billion if they did not withdraw the episode.
What are the chances of success if he pursues such a case? To answer this, we need to look at two different issues.
First, how the defamation laws on the books apply to this situation. Second, how things might actually turn out in practice.
Defamation laws allow individuals to obtain redress (such as damages) if they make false claims that damage another party’s reputation. The BBC admitted that the Panorama footage was misleading because it stitched together two parts of Trump’s speech that were actually 50 minutes apart.
But this in no way guarantees that Trump’s defamation claim will succeed. Trump must meet established requirements to prove that the images are indeed defamatory. In doing so he would face significant difficulties in both the UK and the US.
First, Trump’s current reputation is hardly spotless and includes court findings of fraud, sexual assault (subject to ongoing litigation in the US) and impeachment for inciting an insurrection against a democratically elected government (he was later acquitted).
He also won the 2024 US election within two weeks of the episode airing. Therefore, it will be difficult for his lawyers to prove that his reputation has been damaged by this Panorama incident.
Truth defenses exist in both jurisdictions. These protect a defendant whose allegations contain minor inaccuracies as long as the “bitterness” of the defamation (in this case that Trump’s speech contributed to the Capitol storming) is true.
British libel law is notable for being plaintiff-friendly (especially compared to the US), so filing suit in that jurisdiction would arguably have been preferable for Trump. However, in the UK, the defamation claim must be brought immediately within one year of publication.
This deadline has expired as the Panorama episode is due to air in October 2024. So Trump’s defamation claim is time-barred in the UK. It had previously tried (but failed) to use data protection law to protect its reputation in the UK due to the longer statute of limitations of six years.
Trump threatened to file a lawsuit in the US state of Florida. The BBC said in a letter to Trump’s legal team that it did not have the right to distribute the Panorama episode on US channels and that the film on iPlayer was only available to UK viewers.
About the author
Rebecca Moosavian is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Leeds.
This article is republished from: Speech It is under Creative Commons license. Read original article.
U.S. law is notable for providing strong free speech protections, especially for media organizations sued by public figures. In libel law, freedom of expression in the media was guaranteed by the Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964.
LB Sullivan was a police commissioner in Montgomery, Alabama, who sued the Times for running an ad that was critical of the police (but contained some minor inaccuracies). The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that if a public official sues for defamation, he or she must meet a higher criterion than a civilian to be successful.
They must prove that the defendant made the statement with “actual malice,” knew the statement was false, or made it without caring whether the statement was true. This principle was extended to other “public figures” in later cases. True malice is so difficult to detect, making defamation actions incredibly difficult for politicians to win.
Insult threats in practice
So if we focus only on legal texts, the BBC may seem relatively safe. However, in practice, there can be large gaps between what the legal rules say and how defamation disputes actually work. Making legal threats (even if false or doomed to fail) can still be beneficial for plaintiffs like Trump.
As leading US academic RonNell Andersen Jones explains, these legal threats serve as public relations for politicians and undermine the public’s trust in journalists who seek to hold them to account.
These threats are a form of strategic lawsuits against public participation called “Slapp” cases. Slaps are legal threats made to silence or intimidate critics or those who speak out on issues of public interest.
These lawsuits are effective because they take advantage of the extremely high legal costs of litigation and exploit inequalities of power or resources between the parties. Weaker parties are forced to back down, even though they are likely to successfully defend themselves against the claim.
Many Slapps never even make it to the courts because their targets choose to settle the case rather than risk the expense and stress of litigation. This playbook has served Trump well.
He has a continuing history of demanding outrageous sums from media outlets, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CBS and ABC (both of which paid Trump millions to settle lawsuits), based on arguably flimsy claims. No doubt he calculates that the BBC will give in and settle down early.
Trump’s libel threat against the BBC puts it in a precarious position. Although the BBC has a strong legal case in front of it, it faces financial constraints due to shrinking publicly funded budgets and constant attacks from political and commercial rivals. Now, like CBS and ABC before him, he will have to make a big decision about how to respond and whether to compromise.
This article was amended on 21 November to add comments from the BBC about the Panorama episode not being distributed in the US.
