A date has been officially set for a decision in Bruce Lehrmann's high-profile defamation case against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
On Wednesday afternoon, a Federal Court email confirmed April 4 as the day Justice Michael Lee is set to hand down his judgment following a month-long trial last year.
Mr Lehrmann is suing the television network and the veteran journalist over a 2021 The Project story which aired Brittany Higgins' allegation of being raped inside Parliament House two years earlier.
The former Liberal staffer was not named in the television interview but he claims being identifiable and defamed as the accused man.
"My client has been publicly maligned, as certainly the most prominent rapist," barrister Matthew Richardson SC told the court in November.
Justice Lee's highly-anticipated decision is unlikely to be a black and white one, and even less likely to conclusively resolve the infamous sexual assault case.
He has already flagged major credit issues with Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins, who each spent several days in the witness box during the trial.
The pair gave starkly opposing accounts of what took place inside the ministerial office of Senator Linda Reynolds in the early hours of March 23, 2019.
In defending the civil action against them, Ms Wilkinson and Ten have aimed to prove the rape allegation was substantially true and reporting it reasonably and professionally was in the public interest.
Mr Lehrmann has always denied raping Ms Higgins when the pair worked together.
His criminal trial was aborted due to juror misconduct, with the charge of sexual intercourse without consent levelled at him later discontinued.
No criminal findings have been made against him.
