New detail on witness legal fees
A request for reimbursement in profile case was not made until after Seven’s legal financing was revealed in court.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
A report last week that Kerry Stokes family-owned company Australian Capital Equity was paying legal bills for witnesses in the defamation case surround Ben Roberts-Smith, was contradicted in court yesterday.
The court heard last week the Seven Network was billed almost $170,000 for the legal costs of three witnesses who are testifying on behalf of Roberts-Smith, general manager of 7Queensland and Seven Brisbane over nearly two years.
A spokesperson for the Seven Network told Guardian Australia last Thursday “the claim the Seven Network are paying the legal fees is not correct”, but said the fees were being “reimbursed” by another arm of the Stokes empire.
“The fees were reimbursed by ACE, the chair’s private company,” a spokesperson said. “The chairman felt it was unfair that soldiers were being brought before the inquiry without representation.”
But the court heard on Tuesday that the request for reimbursement was not made to Stokes’s private company until after Seven’s legal financing was revealed in court.
The case against The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times continues.