Media

Al Gore sues Al Jazeera over $500M Current TV sale

Al Gore better hope this legal battle goes better than the one he lost in 2000.

The former vice president and his one-time partner at Current TV filed suit on Friday against Al Jazeera, the Qatar-owned media empire that bought the cable channel for $500 million.

The suit, filed in Delaware Chancery Court, claims the channel renamed Al Jazeera America is illegally withholding $65 million due Current TV’s former shareholders under the terms reached in January 2013.

Gore, 66, was set to personally pocket an estimated $100 million on the sale of his 20 percent stake in the network, which he helped found in 2004.

“Al Jazeera America wants to give itself a discount on the purchase price that was agreed to nearly two years ago,” David Boies, who’s representing Gore and Current TV’s other co-founder, Joel Hyatt, said in a statement.

The high-powered legal eagle — who represented Gore in his failed bid to overturn former President George W. Bush’s victory in the Florida recount case in 2000 — also took issue with the defendant’s desire to keep the complaint under seal.

“Despite being a news organization, Al Jazeera America has said that the full complaint should be kept from the public file,” said Boies, who predicted the court would overrule the defendant’s request for privacy.

At the time of Current TV’s sale, $85 million was placed in escrow to satisfy any indemnification obligations of the channel’s parent company, Current Media.

The escrow period was to end on July 2, at which time Al Jazeera America was to release the $65 million remaining in the account to Current Media’s former owners.

On June 27, however, the defendant submitted claims that Gore’s camp alleges were designed “to retain all of the escrow balance for itself.”

Al Jazeera America responded that its outside counsel is reviewing the complaint.

“We may have further comment once they’ve fully reviewed everything,” said a spokeswoman.

The litigation is just the latest development in a relationship many considered star-crossed from the start.

Environmental activist Gore shocked the media world on designating oil-financed Al Jazeera the winner of the auction for the cable channel that he and Hyatt launched in 2005.

CNN co-founder Reese Schonfeld was so befuddled by Gore’s choice of buyer he quipped: “Al is always chasing good causes — unless, I guess, his wallet gets in the way.”

But it hasn’t been easy for Al Jazeera America, either. Al Jazeera was widely believed to have overpaid for low-rated Current TV in a desperate bid to gain a distribution foothold in the US.

The network had been averaging 17,000 prime-time viewers — compared with 31,000 for its Current TV predecessor — before the Gaza conflict spurred a 30 percent ratings hike at the end of July.

Moreover, as it heads into its first anniversary on Aug. 20, Al Jazeera America continues to suffer from the perception of having an anti-American bias and from a restructuring that laid off up to 100 employees only recently wooed to the cable TV startup.