Legal experts question viability of Trump’s $5 billion defamation lawsuit against BBC

U.S. President Donald Trump vows to sue the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for “anywhere between $1bn and $5bn” over a misleading edited clip in a Panorama documentary faces a steep uphill battle in court, with legal analysts pointing to a series of formidable jurisdiction and legal obstacles.

“We have to do it, they’ve even admitted that they cheated, Not that they couldn’t have done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth,” President Trump told reporters on board Air Force One.

BBC have also issued a formal apology last week for an edit in October 2024 documentary which spliced two parts of President’s January 6, 2021, speech.

With the edited version, there was a “mistaken impression” that he directly called for a violent action.

While the apology prompted the resignation of the corporation’s top two executives, the news agency has refused to pay financial compensation and has cited that it “strongly disagreed there is a basis for defamation claim” as reported by Sky News.

Despite BBC’s contrition , legal experts suggest a successful lawsuit is a long shot.

Legal hurdles in the UK

The most straightforward path to file a defamation case would be in the United Kingdom, since the program was originally broadcast here. But, this avenue appears to be closed.

The one-year limitation period for a defamation claim in the UK has almost certainly expired, as the program aired in October 2024. But even if it hadn’t, President Trump would face a difficult task proving serious harm to his reputation, a key requirement under UK law.

It is anticipated that BBC’s defense would be that the edit was an error in judgment, not malice, and that Trump was re-elected as president shortly after the documentary was aired, and didn’t suffer tangible reputational damage in the UK as a result.

Legal hurdles in U.S.

The other way is to bring the case to a U.S. court, potentially in Trump’s home state of Florida, which introduces a different set of challenges, majorly concerning jurisdiction and the high bar for public figures to prove defamation.

The major problem Trump will face is that the BBC’s Panorama program was not broadcasted on any American television and was geographically restricted on the BBC’s iPlayer platform.

To sue in Florida, Trump’s legal team would have to convince the court the BBC purposefully directed its content at a Florida audience, which seems a difficult argument to make.

If a court accepts a jurisdiction, the U.S. President would then have to meet the “actual malice” standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.

Since BBC has already stated that the edit was “unintentional” in its formal apology writing in retraction, “We accept that our edit unintentionally created this impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and this this gave the mistake impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.”

This statement directly contradicts the “actual malice” standard.

A political quagmire for UK Prime Minister

The situation also created a diplomatic and political dilemma for UK Prime minister Keir Starmer.

Trump told reporters that he plans to have a telephonic conversation with Starmer over the weekend.

Since BBC is a public corporation, funded by a license fee and legally independent of government, Starmer intervenes to dissuade Trump from the lawsuit, can accused him of compromising the BBC’s editorial independence.

If he remains silent, he leaves a cherished British institution facing a potentially costly and protracted legal battle with a sitting U.S. president, a fight that could ultimately be funded by British taxpayers.

In a separate interview on Saturday, November 15, recorded before his comments on Air Force One, Trump declared the lawsuit an “obligation,” adding, “If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people.

However, the legal path to a multi-billion dollar payout appears with complications that may make the threat of a lawsuit more potent than its eventual filing.