Donald Trump will not back down without a fight. The presidential candidate is threatening to take "action against NBC" for pulling the Miss USA Pageant days after he filed a $500 million lawsuit against Univision for dropping its coverage.
Alan Garten, executive vice president and general counsel of The Trump Organization, detailed the multiple legal actions Trump is pursuing on CNN's "Reliable Sources" on Sunday.
"There's a clear conflict playing out here," Garten told host Brian Stelter. "One aspect, NBC is a partner in the Miss Universe Organization and you've got another division which has separate agreements with the Miss Universe Organization, as a broadcaster. Under those agreements, NBC had the clear obligation to broadcast the Miss Universe pageant in 2016. They also elected to schedule, to broadcast the Miss USA pageant in 2015, and then backed away from it. And that's, I believe, a clear breach of the provisions of the agreement."
NBC and the 69-year-old Trump signed an arbitration clause which could rule out the need for a public lawsuit. Instead, the two sides will meet with a mutually agreed upon arbitrator to settle their dispute and must abide by his or her decision, according to TheWrap.
"There is an arbitration clause and we will obviously be following the contract," Garten said. "That sort of represents the difference between how we as an organization act and how NBC has acted. We followed the contract. They have not."
The general counselor added that if the companies' dispute "requires litigation, it will be in ligation."
Univision did not have the arbitration clause in its contract that agreed to pay a total of $13.5 million in licensing fees to broadcast the pageant over the next five years. Trump filed his suit with the Spanish-language broadcaster on June 30 and it states the company had "no right to terminate its relationship with [the organization] and refuse to broadcast the upcoming Miss USA pageant."
Univision, which signed the contract in January 2015, responded to Trump's lawsuit shortly after it was filed. "We just reviewed Mr. Trump's complaint for the first time, and it is both factually false and legally ridiculous," the network said in statement.
The cable channel, Reelz, has agreed to air the Miss USA pageant on Sunday, July 12 at 8 p.m.
