In a hearing in Sydney this morning, Bruce Lehrmann has been ordered by the federal court to pay Network Ten $2 million over his failed defamation case against the network.
At the hearing, Network Ten reported that the actual cost of the trial amounted to approximately $3.6 million, but it has heavily discounted the cost to settle at $2 million. The federal court agreed to this proposition.
Lehrmann’s lawyer, Paul Svilans, questioned the fees, claiming that Ten’s lawyers often ran the case “in a Rolls Royce manner”. He noted that Ten sometimes had up to five lawyers in the court, with lead barrister Matthew Collins charged $11,000 a day.
Svilans also questioned a further $400,000 fee, which he speculated was tied up with the emergence of evidence and a sworn affidavit from former Seven Network producer Taylor Auerbach.
Justice Lee said that he wasn’t surprised by the figures presented.
Lehrmann took the network to court over a now infamous interview with Brittany Higgins on The Project, where she first alleged she was raped in Parliament House. Lehrmann was not named in the interview but argued that it damaged his reputation substantially.
In April this year, Justice Michael Lee handed down his verdict, declaring that, on the basis of probabilities, Lehrmann did rape Higgins in Parliament House on that fateful night in 2019. Lee claimed that Lehrmann was “hellbent on having sex with a woman he found attractive” and was aware that Higgins was intoxicated and, therefore, not in a state to provide consent.
Based on this, Justice Lee dismissed the case, siding in favour of Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson.
Lehrmann continues to deny all allegations made against him and has now lodged an appeal in the Federal Court against this ruling.
