Lisa Wilkinson’s big win in Network Ten cost proceedings

Ten has been ordered to pay Lisa Wilkinson’s legal bills but her overall costs claim has been stood over until Justice Michael Lee hands down his Bruce Lehrmann defamation judgment.

Lisa Wilkinson at the Federal Court in Sydney with a legal representative. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Simon Bullard.

Lisa Wilkinson has won the battle with the Ten Network over her million-dollar legal bills, although exactly how much it will be required to pay rests on who wins the defamation case brought by Bruce Lehrmann – a verdict not expected until at least next month.

The Federal Court heard Wilkinson’s long-held position had been “vindicated” with a finding by judge Michael Lee that it was “reasonable” for her to engage her own legal representation in the defamation proceedings.

Wilkinson spent the previous two days arguing that Ten’s interests in the defamation case were not aligned with her own, and that the network had tried to save face by not revealing publicly that it had endorsed and then legally signed off on her Logies speech, while she alone was left with the blame for derailing Mr Lehrmann’s rape trial.

On Wednesday, Ten was ordered to pay her legal bills. Her overall costs claim has been stood over until Justice Lee hands down his full defamation judgment in March or early April.

Lisa Wilkinson at the federal Court in Sydney with her barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Simon Bullard.

Wilkinson’s legal costs, which had reached $700,000 in September last year, could now exceed well over $1m.

If Mr Lehrmann loses the defamation proceedings, he could be liable for Ten’s legal fees but as an unemployed law student, his ability to pay is in doubt.

Justice Lee, in handing down his judgment, said it was a “completely uncontroversial” conclusion that although in a typical case for defamation the interests of a media corporation were closely aligned with the employee journalist’s interests, differences had emerged between Wilkinson and Ten over the Logies speech.

It was unlikely Ten would be trying to protect her reputation “given the current employment situation”, Justice Lee said.

“It seems to me plain beyond peradventure in all circumstances it was reasonable for Ms Wilkinson to retain separate lawyers,” he concluded.

At 2pm on Wednesday, two days into the hearing for the year-long costs proceedings, Ten suddenly dropped its claim that it was unreasonable for their former employee to hire her own legal representation.

Wilkinson’s barrister, Michael Elliott SC, called the backdown “an embarrassment, under which we had been led on a merry dance right back to where we started, almost a year ago”.

Mr Elliott said Ten had taken the position that “we don’t have to pay you a brass razoo because you’re separately represented”, which he said was the basis for seeking “not just an order for costs but an order for indemnity costs”.

Earlier, Ten’s top legal counsel, Tasha Smithies, gave an insight into why she twice approved Wilkinson’s Logies speech, which praised Brittany Higgins’s “unwavering courage” and was afterwards deemed so prejudicial that Mr Lehrmann’s rape trial was delayed by several months.

Ms Smithies said it was the “preference” of Ten that Wilkinson give a speech at the Logies endorsing Ms Higgins or risk being seen as “wavering in … support” for the alleged victim and thereby “prejudicing” the trial.

“In my view,” Ms Smithies told the Federal Court on Wednesday, “with the circumstances available, that was a preferred course, because it was entirely consistent with a position Ms Wilkinson had taken in the preceding 18 months, and I had genuine concern that to deviate from that position would actually, in effect, create a greater problem because she would be a witness (in the criminal trial) then that could be perceived as wavering in her support of Ms Higgins.”

Ms Smithies said since the interview broadcast in February 2021, throughout 2021, Wilkinson was “inextricably intertwined with Ms Higgins”.

Lisa Wilkinson leaves court on Wednesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

“The words I would use is: Ms Wilkinson became part of the story.

“That continued through the justice march in 2021 … There were also comments (in the press) about how Ms Higgins’ courage had inspired her to tell her own story in her book.

“It was linked with the friendship and support between Higgins and Grace Tame, and this was clear and unequivocal in my mind for the 18 months preceding the Logies speech.

“So to deviate from that position in the speech, in my mind was more prejudicial because it would be saying that she was wavering in her support of Ms Higgins.”

Throughout the day, Justice Lee went to and fro on whether obtaining the advice and acting in accordance with it was enough to absolve Wilkinson, a journalist of 40 years, of making an endorsement of Ms Higgins’s credibility before the trial started.

He suggested at one point that it “wouldn’t be something that ought not to have been obvious to a cadet journalist”.

Later, however, he said he might be taking for granted that Wilkinson was a non-lawyer who had been given “forceful advice” from her network legal representatives.

Wilkinson’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, responded: “Not just forceful (advice) but advice from a person who is engaged by your employer for that precise purpose and who is believed to be an expert on these matters … and duty bound to act in your interest.

“My client … was not at any time a court reporter or a news reporter,” she added.

Ten’s legal advice was never revealed during the defamation trial because the network refused to waive legal privilege, despite the clear preference expressed by ­ Justice Lee for him to see it.