A court in the UK has ordered US President Donald Trump to pay £626,000 (about $821,500) to a British private investigation firm that released reports alleging Trump of Russian ties in 2016.
The reports, known as the Steele dossier, is a collection of memos commissioned by a US firm to British private investigation firm Orbis Business Intelligence to investigate Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow.
Written in 2016 by Christopher Steele, the firm’s co-founder and a former MI6 officer, the dossier includes claims that Russia had damaging information about Trump after the latter had participated in “perverted sexual acts” while in Russia. The content has not been proven or disproven at present.
Trump had denied the claims and brought a data protection lawsuit against Orbis. However, the case was dismissed in February 2024 on the basis that “there are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed,” according to the court’s written ruling, as reported by Reuters at the time.
The court did not issue a ruling on the truthfulness of the accusations.
The court said in February this year that Trump refused to pay £290,000 ($360,000) in legal fees to Orbis within the 28-day time limit, which has snowballed into the current figure via a 12% daily interest rate, on top of other costs.
Judge Jason Rowley ordered Trump to pay Orbis £530,615 (about $684,000) – less than the £680,000 (about $876,000) Orbis sought but more than the £452,000 (about $582,000) it had offered to accept – and an additional £95,000 (about $122,400) in cost-related fees, bringing the total to just over £626,000, according to Reuters.
The refusal to pay the initial fees had also deprived Trump’s legal team of the right to be represented at a hearing this week to determine and potentially contest the legal fees.