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Donald Trump has been given a reprieve from having to hand over financial records as part of his $10bn defamation lawsuit against the BBC.
On Thursday, a US court agreed with an emergency stay requested by lawyers acting for the US president’s investment trust to give time for a separate attempt to change his claim to proceed.
Trump had originally claimed that his brand, properties and business interests had been damaged by a BBC Panorama documentary about the 2021 US Capitol riots, which had edited parts of his speech to supporters.
In July, the BBC’s lawyers were granted permission to seek information to assess whether there had been a financial impact as a result of the documentary.
The Donald J Trump Revocable Trust, which holds the president’s business interests, was required to make its first “substantial production” of documents this week.
However, on Wednesday night, lawyers for the trust launched an eleventh-hour attempt to prevent the disclosure of the financial performance of his companies.
The filing said that the request by the BBC was “shockingly broad” and based on “clearly political motivations”.
It also argued for a stay in the order to release the documents while the court assessed a separate move by Trump to amend the complaint to drop the case’s claims over damages to his financial prospects, properties and businesses. Instead, the amended claim would focus on reputational harm as the alleged compensatory injury.
The BBC pushed back with a filing in response that said the move “represents a transparent effort to avoid the imminent court-ordered deadline to begin producing financial discovery”.
On Thursday, a judge agreed that Trump’s lawyers had made a “compelling argument” and that the court would grant the motion to stay the enforcement of the discovery order.
In a filing, the judge stated that “if [Trump’s] amendment obviates the need to compel a non-party to disclose confidential financial information, we think it’s prudent to enter a brief stay of the order until the amendment request is resolved”.
The latest ruling is a setback for the BBC, which had hoped to start assessing the merits of Trump’s claim after months of waiting for documents.
The BBC has apologised for its editing of Trump’s speech in the documentary, which suggested he had encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol building on January 6 2021, as lawmakers ratified his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 US election.
But the broadcaster has promised to fight Trump’s lawsuit, arguing that the case should be thrown out of the Florida court as there is no evidence that the documentary was viewed in the US.
The BBC declined to comment on the judge’s decision on Thursday.
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