Angelina Jolie is required to submit eight years’ worth of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in her ongoing legal battle with ex-husband Brad Pitt over their French winery, Château Miraval, a Los Angeles judge has ordered.
In April, Jolie’s legal team filed a motion seeking to release communications that they say would prove Pitt would not let her sell her share of the winery to him unless she agreed to an “expansive” NDA.
Last week, Pitt’s lawyers asked that Judge Lia Martin compel his ex-wife to submit the NDAs she had signed in the past.
Judge Martin ruled in favor of Pitt’s request on Thursday (16 May). The legal documents state that Jolie, 48, must “produce, within 60 calendar days of this Order, all non-privileged documents in her possession, custody or control that are responsive to” the previous action filed by Pitt.
Pitt’s legal team argued that the NDAs were “highly relevant” to Jolie’s “purported justifications for refusing to adhere to her contractual obligations to Pitt” when she sold her shares of the winery to a Russian oligarch named Yuri Shefler.
According to People, a source close to Pitt, 60, called the recent ruling a “significant blow to the credibility” of Jolie’s case and a “strong statement challenging them to match their rhetoric with actual facts, which they consistently have been not been able to do”.
Jolie’s attorney, Paul Murphy, told The Daily Mail that they are “more than happy to turn [the NDAs] over”.
“Common NDAs are simply not comparable to Mr Pitt’s last-second demand to try and cover up his personal misconduct,” Murphy said, adding that they are “gratified that the Court acknowledged that the only potential relevance is to the unconscionability of Mr Pitt’s conduct, a now confirmed key issue in this case”.
Murphy said the ruling “opens the door to discovery on all issues related to Pitt’s abuse” and “we welcome that transparency in all parties’ discovery responses”.
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“Angelina looks forward to the eventual end of this litigation with its false narratives that continue to hurt the family and interfere with their ability to heal,” he said.
Pitt has argued that Jolie used his proposed NDA as justification for halting discussions with him and selling to Shefler.
In the action filed on Thursday, Pitt’s lawyers accused Jolie of refusing “to produce any documents other than those (if any) concerning such an agreement between Jolie and Pitt”.
It was therefore requested that Jolie hand over “any NDA between Jolie and any third party with whom she is in a relationship or who has assisted with the care of the couple’s children”.
The documents clarified that “the production is limited in scope of time to calendar years 2014 through February 17, 2022 (when this action was filed)”.
Pitt first sued Jolie in 2022, claiming that she “secretly” sold her shares of the winery.
The Fight Club actor claimed that he invested a lot of time and money in the winery through the years and that the estranged couple had an understanding that neither of them could sell off their shares without the other person’s consent.
