Judge hits out at Amber Harrison after Seven ruling

Amber Harrison, the former lover of Seven CEO Tim Worner, says she has not regrets about her battle with the network.

Amber Harrison outside her Melbourne home yesterday after a court ordered her to pay Channel 7’s legal fees. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Amber Harrison, the former lover of Seven West Media chief Tim Worner, said she does not regret speaking out about her battle with the network, and hopes the “boys club” that dominates Australian businesses comes to an end.

Speaking this morning after a NSW Supreme Court judge found she acted “unreasonably”, provided no evidence and must pay Seven’s legal costs in their long-running dispute, Ms Harrison said she feels she has won in the court of public opinion.

“When I was exhausted, emotionally and financially and left ruined in December 2016, I made a decision that the court system does not serve an individual, it serves a company that knows its way around it, and I took the path that I took. No, I do not regret that,” she told ABC Radio.

“Litigation is your life, whether you do it in public or do it in private. Mine obviously has been extremely public. They won in court by bankrupting me, but the court of public opinion is very different. I’ve had overwhelming support.”

Seven sources say they are unlikely to pursue for court costs, however Ms Harrison said she will be “under the control” of the company for longer than she hoped.

“So now they have control of my and my child’s future. And I have to figure out how I’m going to raise him under this,” she said.

After a three-year public and private battle, she said she hopes her case forces the male-dominated business world to “wake up”.

“At some point, the boys club that dominates and defines Australian business are going to wake up and realise they are no longer in control, and I think my case is a wake-up call for them,” she said. “And I hope it changes things and changes culture and how individuals are treated against the system. In the end, the truth has a habit of coming out, and I don’t doubt it will.”

Amber in the red

Amber Harrison, a former executive assistant at Seven West Media and lover of its chief executive, must pay all of Seven’s hefty legal costs, a judge ruled yesterday while warning it was unlikely that she could do so.

In his judgment, NSW Supreme Court judge John Sackar said it was unlikely Seven West Media would recoup its money.

“Rarely does even a successful party recoup its legal expenses, whether or not indemnity costs are awarded,” he said, ruling Ms Harrison had breached her contract and a confidentiality agreement with the media giant and had not provided “any evidence” that would allow him to make Seven pay its legal costs.

The judge criticised Ms ­Harrison for contesting claims “she could not substantiate” and her decision to continue the case without providing evidence ­“reflects a real disregard for any adverse costs”. “Irrespective of the depth of their pockets, the plaintiffs (Seven) will be significantly out of pocket following these proceedings,” he said.

In a statement on Twitter yesterday, Ms Harrison said: “They knew it would bankrupt me and the Supreme Court of NSW has helped them do it. In the end it is regular people like you and I that end up being victims of brutal ­corporate bullying and lawfare.”

But Justice Sackar said Seven had acted in an “orthodox and proper fashion”. “Numerous epithets have been used to describe the defendant and her motivations. I do not feel the need to join in the histrionics.”

The judgment could send Ms Harrison into bankruptcy, but legal sources said it was unlikely the company that owns top-rated Seven Network would act to ­recover its bills, which the judge said were significant. It is possible the costs will total hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Seven West Media chief executive Tim Worner.

“What’s the point?” one legal source said. “She doesn’t have any resources. There’s a point of view that it’s not a great look in the court of public opinion.”

The company said in a statement: “Seven West Media looks forward to putting this matter ­behind us.”

It made reference to the female Seven employees that Ms ­Harrison accused of having affairs with chief executive Tim Worner. “It is regrettable that people Ms Harrison falsely and unfairly named in her failed Human Rights Commission complaint were forced to take separate proceedings to protect their names.”

But other female employees at the company, which also owns The West Australian newspaper and a magazine stable including Better Homes and Gardens, had a sharply different view. One female employee spoke of disappointment that Mr Worner had not or was not required to show more public contrition, at least for the sake of his wife and four children.

Another said: “All the women at Seven are pretty disgusted by it. They are disappointed that decent proper action was not taken.

“At any other company they would have dismissed the chief executive. It’s a very sexist company and this compounds that.”

Ms Harrison, who worked as an executive assistant at Seven for years, had left the company in November 2014 after her 18-month affair with Mr Worner soured. She was pursued by the company’s barristers for breaching confidentiality agreements she signed.

The company contended that her social media posts had breached her employment contract and a deed in which the company agreed to pay her $427,418 in instalments for her silence.

Ms Harrison continued acting against the company, despite the possibility of ending the dispute.

Last December she went public about her affair after negotiations for a deed of release between her and the company failed. Ms Harrison has consented to a gag order banning her from speaking ­publicly about her affair or confidential company information.

The judge noted the proceedings had been “engulfed in a vitriolic atmosphere”.

With Stephen Brook