ANGELINA Jolie has suffered a new defeat in her legal battle with ex-husband Brad Pitt over their French winery.
A judge at the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that Jolie, 48, must produce all non-disclosure agreements she agreed with third parties over an eight-year period from 2014 to 2022.
Judge Lia Martin rejected Jolie’s objections that her NDAs had “no relevance.”
Jolie has been given 60 days by the court to produce all relevant documents.
NDAs have become a key issue in the dispute over the award-winning Chateau Miraval business in Provence, Southern France.
Jolie claims she backed out of selling her stake to Pitt, 60, after he asked her to sign an “unconscionable” privacy agreement as part of the deal.
Meanwhile, Pitt’s legal team has argued that the use of this defense is severely undermined by Jolie’s own routine use of NDAs.
They claim it is a smokescreen to “rationalize” the decision to sell her stake to Russian booze tycoon Yuri Shefler in October 2021.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood star Pitt is asking the court to reverse the sale.
He claims that he had an agreement with Jolie that neither of them would sell to a third party without the other’s consent.
His legal team says Jolie herself “weaponized” NDAs and even asked Pitt to sign one as part of their divorce talks just six months after the disputed sale.
They had asked that she reveal all NDAs she entered into, including with staff.
Judge Martin today sided with Pitt and ordered the Maleficent actress to produce all NDAs she proposed or that were proposed to her by others, regardless of whether they were finalized or agreed.
The ruling also ordered Jolie to produce NDAs entered into by companies she controls and documents showing the reasons that she or her companies asked for those NDAs.
A source close to Pitt told The U.S. Sun, “Angelina chose to make NDAs a battleground in this case, and now her strategy appears to have backfired spectacularly.
“Her defense has been exposed as a house of cards, and she will now have to provide details of all the NDAs she demanded of third parties.
“There is no question that this is a huge setback for her.
“There’s a long way to go, but in the context of the case so far, this is a hugely important and far-reaching ruling which will be problematic for her defense.”
