The legal conflict between actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie over the French winery Château Miraval has taken a new turn. According to court documents filed this week, Pitt’s legal team is requesting the court to compel testimony from Nouvel LLC, a company he claims Jolie uses as a means to circumvent contractual restrictions, reports Baltimore Chronicle with reference to court filings.
Attorneys for Nouvel have objected to the motion, arguing that the scope of the inquiry is overly broad, unduly burdensome, and unlikely to yield admissible evidence. Nevertheless, Pitt maintains that as early as March 2021, representatives of Stoli Group — a company controlled by Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler — contacted Jolie’s team to express interest in acquiring her stake in Miraval.
Pitt alleges that while he and his team believed they were engaged in direct negotiations with Jolie to purchase her 50% stake, the actress was simultaneously holding secret talks with Stoli. According to the court filing, Jolie’s attorneys allegedly provided Shefler’s company and its intermediary, Russian businessman Alexey Oleynik, with detailed feedback on how to outbid Pitt’s offer.
As a result, the parties reportedly reached a preliminary agreement on a deal worth $65 million. Pitt’s team states that this price was deliberately concealed from him, and, following a private judge’s ruling that Jolie was unreliable, she never gave him the opportunity to match the offer.
Pitt is also seeking testimony related to the financial involvement of Nouvel LLC and Stoli’s subsidiary, Tenute del Mondo, which is listed as a co-defendant in the case. This includes details about their investments in the estate and winery, as well as the conditions under which the shares were transferred. The actor’s legal strategy appears aimed at proving that the sale was conducted in violation of prior agreements.
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