The court found former Stoli general counsel Todd Culyba was improperly instructed not to answer 33 questions during a December deposition concerning Jolie\u2019s 2021 sale of her stake in the French winery business.<\/p>\n
The blocked questions included inquiries about the involvement of Yuri Shelfer, Stoli\u2019s ultimate beneficial owner, in Jolie\u2019s sale of her indirect interest in Miraval to the company.<\/p>\n
MORE: Huge twist in supermodel\u2019s landlord war<\/a><\/p>\n Wahlberg\u2019s secret $72m Packer move in Aus<\/a><\/p>\n \u2018Didn\u2019t have enough\u2019: Star\u2019s sad Aussie life<\/a><\/p>\n Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt. Picture: Barry King\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The pair have been entangled in a dispute over the French winery since 2022. Picture: Getty Images<\/p>\n The judge determined that lawyer-client privilege did not extend to the business aspects of the deal, which the court said were fair game for questioning.<\/p>\n As a result, Mr Culyba was ordered to sit for another deposition and answer the previously blocked questions, along with related follow-up queries, despite objections from the Stoli side.<\/p>\n The latest ruling marks another turn in the bitter legal battle between Pitt, 62, and Jolie, 50, over Ch\u00e2teau Miraval.<\/p>\n Pitt first filed a 2022 lawsuit claiming 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 approved.<\/p>\n Jolie denied that agreement and responded by filing a countersuit, claiming Pitt has been waging a vindictive war against her through litigation. <\/p>\n Pitt\u2019s side has argued the withheld communications are central to understanding the sale.<\/p>\n A judge ruled that lawyers for the Stoli side improperly blocked testimony during a key deposition tied to the case. Picture: Getty Images<\/p>\n The latest ruling marks another turn in the legal battle between Pitt and Jolie over Ch\u00e2teau Miraval. (Seen above in June 2014). Picture: Getty Images<\/p>\n The decision comes weeks after Jolie scored a legal victory of her own.<\/p>\n A Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied Pitt\u2019s effort to force her to turn over private emails tied to the winery dispute.<\/p>\n The court ruled he had not met the burden to overcome lawyer-client privilege claims.<\/p>\n The motion was denied without prejudice, meaning the F1 star could raise the issue again later. <\/p>\n At the time, a source told Page Six it was notable how Jolie had withheld so many documents as privileged and that those emails were just some of the evidence in the case.<\/p>\n Pitt previously secured a separate discovery win in December 2025 when a judge ordered Jolie to turn over certain unredacted non-lawyer communications related to the winery fight.<\/p>\n The Moneyball star finalised his long-running divorce from the Maleficent actress in December 2024, bringing an end to more than eight years of legal proceedings.<\/p>\n The former couple share six children: Maddox, 24, Pax, 22, Zahara, 21, Shiloh, 19, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 17.<\/p>\n Parts of this story first appeared in Page Six<\/a> and was republished with permission.<\/p>\n MORE: Shock twist: Neverland not MJ\u2019s final home<\/a><\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m coming\u2019: Charlize\u2019s secret move to Aus<\/a><\/p>\n Holly\u2019s half $1bn in major divorce payout<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brad Pitt has scored a major breakthrough in his ongoing Ch\u00e2teau Miraval battle against ex-wife Angelina Jolie. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-453858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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