Brad Pitt has scored a legal victory in his ongoing Château Miraval battle with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie.
According to court documents exclusively obtained by Page Six, a Michigan judge ruled on Thursday, May 28, that lawyers for Stoli’s side improperly blocked testimony during a key deposition tied to the case.
The court found that former Stoli General Counsel, Todd Culyba, was improperly instructed not to answer 33 questions during a December deposition concerning Jolie’s 2021 sale of her stake in the French winery business.
The blocked questions included inquiries about the involvement of Yuri Shelfer — Stoli’s ultimate beneficial owner — in Jolie’s sale of her indirect interest in Miraval to the company.
The judge determined that attorney-client privilege did not extend to the “business aspects” of the deal, which the court said were fair game for questioning.
As a result, Culyba was ordered to sit for another deposition and answer the previously blocked questions, along with related follow-ups, over objections from the Stoli side.
The latest ruling marks another turn in the legal battle between Pitt, 62, and Jolie, 50, over Château Miraval.
Pitt first filed a 2022 lawsuit claiming that his ex-wife had sold her share of Miraval to Tenute del Mondo, the wine division of the Stoli Group, despite a prior agreement that neither would do so unless the other person approved.
Jolie denied that agreement and responded by filing a countersuit, claiming the actor-producer has been “waging a vindictive war against” her.
The decision also comes just weeks after Jolie scored a legal victory of her own when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied Pitt’s effort to force her to turn over a set of private emails tied to the winery dispute, ruling he had not met the burden to overcome attorney-client privilege claims.
