Bruce Lehrmann defamation case: what happens next and who pays the legal bills?

The former Liberal staffer lost the defamation case he brought against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson, with Justice Michael Lee finding on Monday that on the balance of probabilities Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins on the minister’s couch in Parliament House in 2019.

“As a result of the inconclusive criminal trial, Mr Lehrmann remains a man who has not been convicted of any offence, but he has now been found, by the civil standard of proof, to have engaged in a great wrong,” Lee said.

The case will be back in court on Monday 22 April for a hearing on costs, where Lehrmann may be ordered to pay Ten’s legal bill, possibly to the tune of $8m, on top of his own.

Defamation expert Peter Bartlett, a partner at MinterEllison and the lead solicitor for Nine in the Ben Roberts-Smith trial, estimates Ten’s bill to be $8m because the network was paying for three firms of lawyers.

Lehrmann also faces potential prosecution by the ACT after he was found by Lee to have breached the Harman undertaking when he leaked material he received in his criminal trial to Seven for its Spotlight program.

“As I explained at the trial, I am not some sort of roving law enforcement official, and if any issue concerning an alleged breach of the Hearne v Street obligation is to be pursued in relation to anyone, it will not be by me, and it will not be by this Court.”