BBC pays up in rights case

The BBC has had to pay pounds 500,000 compensation to an independent production company for trying to deprive it of its share of overseas rights for the detective series Dalziel & Pascoe. The Corporation paid the money to Portobello Pictures on Friday night, just days before it was due to go to court and defend a charge of breach of contract and misrepresentation.

Portobello Pictures, co-producer, took the series to the BBC and claimed it was due a share of the money paid to the Corporation for the programme by the American cable channel A&E Network. Portobello's managing director Eric Abrahams said: "It is a matter of great regret that a publicly-funded body like the BBC should waste hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees alone trying to evade its contractual obligations."

The BBC maintains that the co-production contract contained `highly unusual clauses' and that the final settlement was lower than Portobello's original claim.