Bruce Lehrmann is expected to be hit with a multimillion-dollar legal bill when a court rules on who will pay for his failed defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.
Lehrmann suffered a massive legal loss in April after Federal Court Justice Michael Lee found he had, on a balance of probabilities, raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in March 2019.
He had had sued for defamation over a February 2021 episode of The Project, during which Ms Higgins aired her rape claims for the first time in an interview with Wilkinson.
As the loser of the trial, Lehrmann will be expected to cough up at least a portion of the costs of running the trial.
Earlier this week, the court heard Lehrmann does not have a secret financier who bankrolled the case.
Wilkinson’s lawyer Zoe Graus said in court on Wednesday that Lehrman was given a notice to produce documentation including bank statements, trust accounts, or third-party agreements with benefactors.
His solicitor Paul Svilans told the court his client had nothing to produce because there were no agreements.
The only agreement Lehrmann had was with defamation law firm Mark O’Brien Legal, which ran the case for him on a no-win, no-fee basis.
Justice Lee said: ‘The two key points are, yes, there’s been a lot of costs rendered, but they’re not recoverable because Mr Lehrmann … lost.’
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