- Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson have reached an agreement
- He had billed Ten $1.8 million.
Network Ten will only pay Lisa Wilkinson about $558,000 of her $1.8 million legal bill, a court heard.
The agreement was revealed during a case management hearing at the Federal Court on Thursday relating to costs in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against the broadcaster and Wilkinson.
Wilkinson hired her own legal team to defend her in the defamation action, rather than using Ten’s lawyers, and then won a tender for her employer to cover those fees.
Her firm of choice was Gillis Delaney Lawyers, where the supervising partner charges $750 an hour, and the lead defamation lawyer, Sue Chrysanthou SC, charges $8,000 a day.
He originally handed Ten a bill for $1.8 million, but the court heard on Thursday that Wilkinson had accepted an offer from the broadcaster to pay a fraction of that cost.
The court also heard Ten racked up its own $3.6 million bill for the defamation case with $11,000-a-day lawyer Matthew Collins KC.
However, the network has only asked Lehrmann to pay $2 million.
Lisa Wilkinson originally billed Network Ten $1.8 million for the defamation suit
The costs will be determined by an independent arbitrator, who will then deliver his findings to the judge.
The network originally offered to pay Wilkinson $607,850, but a review found that amount to be “overly generous.”
Ten’s lawyer, Zoe Graus, told Judge Lee that if an outside arbitrator determined Wilkinson’s costs were less than the agreed $558,548, she would have to pay the network back.
“Your Honor will see to it that the next order is that if the arbitrator determines that the amount is less, Ms. Wilkinson will refund it to us,” Ms. Graus said.
“We are not willing to commit to paying a sum of that amount today.”
Lehrmann’s lawyer, Paul Svilans, said his client “neither consents nor opposes” the order.
He suffered a massive legal loss against Ten and Wilkinson in April when Judge Lee found, on a balance of probabilities, that he had raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament in March 2019.
Bruce Lehrmann lost the trial and now has to face a legal bill of 2 million dollars
She had filed a defamation lawsuit over a February 2021 episode of The Project, during which Higgins first aired her rape allegations in an interview with Wilkinson.
The former Liberal staffer, who had denied assault allegations, was not named in the broadcast but claimed friends and colleagues were able to identify him as Ms Higgins’ rapist.
As the loser of the trial, Lehrmann is expected to pay 90 percent of Ten and Wilkinson’s costs for their successful defence of truth, and 70 percent of the costs associated with their unsuccessful defence of qualified privilege.
The former employee is an unemployed law student who has been out of work since 2021 and could be forced to file for bankruptcy.
If Lehrmann goes bankrupt and bills are not paid, Network Ten will have to cover its own costs and Wilkinson’s reasonable costs.
The hearing continues.