Donald Trump's data protection lawsuit against a British private investigations firm over a dossier which alleged ties between Trump's campaign and Russia has been thrown out by London's High Court.
Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, had sued Orbis Business Intelligence about claims in a dossier written by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who co-founded Orbis.
Judge Karen Steyn ruled that the former US president's case could not continue.
She said in a written ruling that "there are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial".
Donald Trump has lost his lawsuit in the UKREUTERSTrump said in a witness statement made public in October that he brought the case to prove claims in the so-called Steele dossier, published by the BuzzFeed website in 2017, that he engaged in "perverted sexual acts" in Russia, are false.
Many of the allegations were never substantiated and lawyers for Trump, 77, said that the report is "egregiously inaccurate" and contained "numerous false, phoney or made-up allegations".
Orbis, however, argued that Trump brought the claim simply to address his "longstanding grievances" against the company and Steele.
The London lawsuit is just one of many legal cases involving Trump, who faces four separate criminal prosecutions in the United States.
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In a judgment on Thursday, Justice Steyn said: “In my view, there are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial in circumstances where, whatever the merits of the allegation that the personal data are inaccurate may be, the claim for compensation and/or damages… is bound to fail.”
She added: “In reality, the claimant is seeking court findings to vindicate his reputation in circumstances where has not been able to formulate any viable remedy which he would have a real prospect of obtaining, or which would itself be of any utility; and having chosen to allow many years to elapse – without any attempt to vindicate his reputation in this jurisdiction – since he was first made aware of the dossier, including the memoranda, on 6 January 2017.”
Dismissing the claim, Justice Steyn said that the “mere fact” that Orbis had held copies of the memos could not cause Trump distress.
“Mere storage of the memoranda by the defendant cannot sensibly be said to have had any impact on the claimant – if he was even aware of it – not least in circumstances where the memoranda are on the internet,” the judge added.
During the hearing, Antony White KC, for the consultancy, said the case had been brought to pursue a “vendetta” against Orbis and the former MI6 officer.
He said: “The claimant has a deep and intense animus against Mr Steele and Orbis, which is reflected in numerous vituperative public statements which he has made since the dossier was made public by BuzzFeed in 2017.”
White added that Trump “has a long history of repeatedly bringing frivolous, meritless and vexatious claims for the purpose of vexing and harassing perceived enemies and others against whom he bears a grudge”.
