By Gene Maddaus
Update, 5 p.m. Sept. 20: Wu has adopted the tentative ruling as his final ruling. A status conference has been set for Oct. 3, and an appeal is expected.
A federal judge is leaning towards granting the Michael Jackson estate’s move to take HBO to arbitration in its dispute over the documentary “Leaving Neverland.”
Judge George Wu issued a tentative ruling on Thursday in which he denied HBO’s motion to dismiss the estate’s case. Wu is expected to make the ruling final by the end of September.
The four-hour documentary features allegations of two men, James Safechuck and Wade Robson, who say they were sexually abused by Jackson over the course of several years when they were young children. The Jackson estate argues that by running the documentary, HBO violated a non-disparagement agreement from a 1992 concert film from Jackson’s “Dangerous” tour.