The UK High Court has recently dismissed a lawsuit brought by former US President Donald Trump, resulting in Trump being ordered to pay £300,000 in legal fees to Christopher Steele. The lawsuit concerned Trump’s allegations against Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence Limited (Orbis), primarily focusing on two memoranda in the contentious Steele Dossier. This Dossier is an unverified collection of memos detailing various allegations suggesting a possible conspiracy between Trump and Moscow.
The lawsuit brought forth by Trump against Orbis consisted of three main claims. Initially, in 2020, Trump filed in the case of Aven v Orbis Business Intelligence Limited [2020] EWHC 1812 (QB), pursued under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA). The claim asserted that the memoranda violated data protection laws, containing allegations about personal data that was labeled as inaccurate.
The second claim, Gubarev v Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd [2021] EWHC 2912 (QB), EMLR 5, was a defamation suit brought against Orbis and Steele. The former president argued that the allegations caused reputational damage and distress.
The recent dismissal pertains to the third claim, President Donald J Trump v Orbis Business Intelligence Limited [2024] EWHC 173 (KB). Steele successfully sought dismissal of Trump’s claim on grounds of disclosing no reasonable grounds for instigating the claim and/or being an abuse of the court’s process, and the claim posessing no real prospect of succeeding.
Justice Steyn ruled in February that there were no reasonable grounds for claiming for compensation for distress in respect of the only remaining act of data processing, and as Trump had no real prospect of obtaining any of the remedies he sought, Steele was entitled to summary judgement on the whole claim.
Stating that the case was bound to fail, Justice Steyn ordered Trump to pay £300,000 in legal fees to Orbis.