Donald Trump has been ordered by a judge to pay more than £625,000 in legal costs after unsuccessfully suing a British-based company over allegations that he took part in “perverted” sex acts.
The US president, 78, brought a data protection claim against Orbis Business Intelligence, a consultancy founded by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, in 2022.
Mr Steele authored the so-called Steele dossier which contained allegations, denied by Mr Trump, that he had been “compromised” by Russian security service the FSB, and also included two memos that claimed he had taken part in “sex parties” in St Petersburg and engaged in “golden showers” with prostitutes in Moscow.
Mrs Justice Steyn threw out the claim in February last year without ruling on the truth of the allegations, and ordered Mr Trump to pay Orbis’s costs “of the entire claim” including an initial payment of £290,000, which a hearing in January was told that Mr Trump had “decided not to pay”.
That led to him being prevented from taking part in a three-day hearing to decide the size of the total legal bill, with Costs Judge Jason Rowley ordering on Thursday that the president pay £626,058.98.
The specialist judge said the figure was “both reasonable and proportionate”, with interest accruing daily at 12%.
Mr Steele previously ran the Secret Intelligence Service’s Russia desk.
The dossier, made up of more than a dozen memos, was produced by Orbis in 2016 before the US election which saw Mr Trump become president for the first time, before it was leaked to and published by BuzzFeed in 2017.
At a hearing in October 2023, Hugh Tomlinson KC, for Mr Trump, described the allegations in the memos – which also included a claim that he had “defiled” a bed previously used by former president Barack Obama and his wife – as “egregiously inaccurate”.
Mrs Justice Steyn ruled that the claim was “bound to fail” but said she had “not considered, or made any determination, as to the accuracy or inaccuracy” of the claims in the dossier.
A previous hearing in January was told that Orbis would seek all of its legal costs from the claim, which lawyers for Mr Trump described as “eye-watering” and “absolutely outrageously high”.
