Blow for Trump in two legal cases, payouts ordered

Former US president Donald Trump has been ordered to pay a six-figure legal bill to a company founded by a former British spy that he unsuccessfully sued for making what his lawyer called “shocking and scandalous” false claims that harmed his reputation.

A London judge, who threw out the case against Orbis Business Intelligence last month saying it was “bound to fail,” ordered Trump to pay legal fees of £300,000 ($AUD578,065), according to court documents released Thursday.

Orbis was founded by Christopher Steele, who once ran the Russia desk for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6.

Steele was paid by Democrats for research that included salacious allegations Russians could potentially use to blackmail Trump.

The so-called Steele dossier assembled in 2016 created a political storm just before Trump’s inauguration with rumours and uncorroborated allegations that have since been largely discredited.

Trump sued the company, saying the dossier was phony and Orbis had violated British data protection laws.

Orbis said the lawsuit should be thrown out because the report was never meant to be made public and was published by BuzzFeed without the permission of Steele or Orbis. It also said the claim was filed too late.

Judge Karen Steyn sided with Orbis in her February 1 ruling.

In 2022, a US federal judge in Florida dismissed a Trump lawsuit against Steele, his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and former top FBI officials, rejecting his claims they helped concoct the Russia investigation that overshadowed much of his administration.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has denied Trump’s request to delay enforcement of the writer E Jean Carroll’s $US355 million ($A537 million) verdict in her recent defamation case.

In the January 26 verdict, jurors agreed with Carroll, a former Elle magazine advice columnist, that Trump had defamed her in June 2019 by denying he had raped her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room in Manhattan.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan gave Trump 30 days to post a bond or come up with cash during his appeal, which is expected to challenge the jury’s finding of liability and the amount of damages.

The former president had sought to delay enforcement of the verdict until the judge ruled on his motions to throw it out, which he filed on Tuesday.

But the judge said Trump should not have waited 25 days after the verdict before seeking a delay.

He also said Trump failed to show how he might suffer “irreparable injury” if required to post a bond.

Lawyers for Trump rejected Carroll’s claim that his finances were strained.

Carroll called Trump the “least trustworthy of borrowers” and said his request “boils down to nothing more than ‘trust me.’”

Trump’s financial flexibility deteriorated last month, when the judge who found him liable in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil fraud case ordered him to pay $US454.2 million ($A687.3 million).

An appeals court judge on February 28 denied Trump’s request to delay enforcement during the appeal.

with Reuters