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A federal judge in Florida has allowed the legal process of US President Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against the BBC, which sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, to continue.
However, Judge Jeffrey Koontz rejected a second claim in the lawsuit - worth $10bn (£7.5bn) - that was based on the state's unfair trade practices law.
The US President is suing the BBC over an episode of the "Panorama" program that combined two different parts of a speech Trump gave before the riots that took place in the US Capitol in 2021.
Trump threatens to sue the BBC for $1 billion in damages over editing his speech
In a post on the Truth Social platform on Tuesday, Trump called the judge's decision a "huge victory."
For his part, a BBC spokesman said: “We are surprised by this decision, but we respect the authority of the court, and point out that the case will now move to its next stage.”
The BBC spokesman added: "We remain confident in our position and will continue to respond through the appropriate legal path."
Judge Koontz found that Trump's defamation allegations against the BBC were sufficient to allow the case to continue, although he did not rule on the merits of the case.
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“The question of whether President Trump can prove these allegations and assert that he suffered damages — whether at the summary judgment stage or at trial — is a matter for later,” the judge wrote in his decision issued Tuesday.
Trump's lawsuit in Florida accuses the BBC of "deliberately, maliciously and misleadingly manipulating" the speech he delivered outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The British Broadcasting Corporation had issued an apology, explaining that the broadcast gave “the false impression that Trump had directly called for acts of violence.”
The BBC asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the program did not meet the legal standards for defamation, and was not available for viewing in the United States.
The BBC apologizes to Trump and rejects his claim for compensation
Along with the defamation charge, Trump claimed in his lawsuit that the agency violated Florida law, specifically the “Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
In his decision on Tuesday, Judge Koontz dismissed that part of the lawsuit, finding that the documentary did not fall under the category of “commercial speech.”
The director-general and chief executive of the BBC resign over Donald Trump's "speech modification" in what was known as the Capitol storming events.
Last month, a judge ordered Trump to answer some questions under oath as part of the lawsuit by December 11, after the president canceled a previously scheduled questioning session, citing “matters of national importance.”
A lawyer for the BBC stated before the court that Trump was on an election tour in the state of Georgia on the day scheduled for the hearing, and that he “prioritized that” at the expense of answering the questions asked of him.
Earlier this year, Trump's lawyers acknowledged that they had no evidence that the documentary was available in the United States via the BBC's BritBox service, on the BBC's website, on BBC Select, or through any US broadcasters, as they had initially claimed.
Ultimately, Trump agreed to exclude BBC Studio - the commercial arm of the BBC - from his defamation suit, after the BBC explained that it had “no role in the preparation or production of the documentary.”
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