Linda Reynolds victorious in court bid to have Brittany Higgins declared bankrupt

Linda Reynolds’ bid to have Brittany Higgins declared bankrupt has succeeded and a trustee will now explore whether anything remains of her $2.4 million settlement with the Federal Government.

Ms Reynolds, a former Liberal senator, launched the Federal Court action after winning a bitter defamation case against her former junior media adviser and not receiving one cent in damages and legal costs.

Ms Reynolds has estimated the bill for defending herself in court ran into “millions” - and also ended her political career.

She then sought to declare Ms Higgins bankrupt, which initially hit a snag over a technicality.

The court questioned whether it was acceptable for notice to be served on Ms Higgins’ lawyer Carmel Galati, which is known as substituted service, or should have been served on the PR adviser personally.

But the method of service was accepted on Friday by Federal Court Justice Michael Feutrill.

At a moments-long hearing, the judge ordered that Ms Higgins’ estate be sequestrated and Daniel Juratowitch appointed the external trustee to take control of her financial affairs.

Bennett and Co principal Rachel Ross said the matter was now in the hands of Mr Juratowitch, who would explore whether anything remained of the settlement.

Ms Reynolds’ trial lawyer Martin Bennett has previously said the trustee would immediately zero-in on a protective trust that his client alleges Ms Higgins set up to ringfence the huge payout from creditors.

Ms Higgins recently claimed she was broke.

In a statement, Ms Reynolds said: “I don’t consider today to be a victory.”

“Rather it is the inevitable consequence of a failure by Ms Higgins to pay the damages she was ordered to pay by the court,” she said.

“This is not a step that I wanted to take or have taken lightly.

“The fact of the matter is that I was put to the cost of an expensive Supreme Court trial to prove Ms Higgins egregiously lied about my conduct and to put an end to the continuation of these lies.

“I was successful at that trial and Ms Higgins has failed to pay any of the damages she was ordered to pay.

“She has failed to engage at all and this is the unfortunate consequence.”

Ms Reynolds was also victorious in proving Ms Higgins’ husband David Sharaz disparaged her in social media posts in 2022 and 2023.

The couple alleged she mishandled Ms Higgins’ claim she was raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann in the former politician’s Parliament House office in Canberra in 2019.

The defamation trial judge and another in a separate action deemed their accusations of a political cover-up untrue, but Ms Higgins had already been awarded the settlement.

Ms Reynolds is targeting this decision in a separate Federal Court action - claiming she was completely sidelined from the mediation despite the mishandling claim being “entirely defendable”.

Her separate bid to have Mr Sharaz declared bankrupt returns to the same court next week.

“They’re two separate matters, so separate sets of facts, similar and aligned, but different,” Ms Ross said of the second bankruptcy bid.

Justice Feutrill also ordered Ms Higgins pay a further $6330 in fixed court costs, on top of the 80 per cent of Ms Reynolds’ court costs she was previously ordered to cover.

The trustee has liberty to apply to vary or set aside that order.

She is also liable for more than $340,000 in damages, while Mr Sharaz was ordered to pay up to $220,000 in damages.

That comprises $85,000 payable by him alone and $135,000 for which the couple are jointly liable.

Mr Lehrmann continues to maintain his innocence after his 2022 rape trial was aborted due to juror misconduct and the charge was then dropped.