Trump has refused to pay £290,000 in legal fees after case dismissed in UK, court told
Trump has refused to pay £290,000 in legal fees after case dismissed in UK, court told
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Trump brought suit against firm over allegations in dossier written by Christopher Steele, but claim was thrown out. Donald Trump has refused to pay £290,000 ($360,000) in legal fees after his English lawsuit against a private investigations firm was dismissed, a court in London has heard.
Trump brought a data protection lawsuit against Orbis Business Intelligence over allegations in a dossier written by its co-founder, Christopher Steele, but his claim was thrown out in February last year. The Steele dossier alleged ties between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Russia as well as other salacious allegations, all of which Trump denied.
Lawyers representing Orbis said on Wednesday that Trump had been ordered to make a payment of £290,000 towards Orbis’s legal fees, with further sums also likely to be due. “No real reason has been given for the non-payment,” said Orbis’s lawyer, Mark Friston.
He said Trump was now also claiming he had “sovereign immunity” from any enforcement action as a head of state, an argument he said was “completely hopeless” as it had been a private lawsuit. Trump’s lawyer, Jacqueline Perry, said the court was in a “slightly unusual position, with a slightly unusual client”.
“It’s difficult to get instructions when your client is president of the free world and trying to turn everything upside down,” she said. “This isn’t high in his area of importance.”. She said the president was “an innocent party in this” and was bringing a professional negligence claim against his former legal advisers for bringing his high court lawsuit under the wrong statute.
