Bruce Lehrmann has been ordered to pay $2 million to Ten after losing his defamation case against the network in what his lawyer says might be the ‘”deal of the century”.

In April, Justice Michael Lee found a Network Ten report on The Project in February 2021 did not defame Bruce Lehrmann when it effectively outed him as an accused rapist.

The Federal Court judge found, on the balance of probabilities, that the 29-year-old sexually assaulted Brittany Higgins in the Parliament House office of their then-boss Senator Linda Reynolds in March 2019.

On Thursday, Justice Lee finalised Ten’s bill against Lehrmann after the network agreed to discount the funds it was seeking and quickly resolve the dispute.

Ten’s overall legal expenses for defending the case amounted to almost $3.7 million.

But after Justice Lee found the network had failed in one of its key defences and the firm also lost out in a number of preliminary legal bids, the amount payable by Lehrmann was reduced to approximately $3.1 million.

Ten agreed to bill Lehrmann for a flat rate of $2 million after a hefty discount was applied, the network’s barrister Zoe Graus said on Thursday.

While Lehrmann did not consent to or oppose the order, his lawyer Paul Svilans told the court he did not know enough about how Ten’s lawyers had been paid to know whether the discounted amount was realistic.

“It might be the deal of the century, the $2 million, for all I know,” he told the court.

Justice Lee approved the amount, finding it was well within the amount that would have been recoverable given the complexity and length of the lawsuit.

Lehrmann denies that any sexual activity occurred and has appealed Justice Lee’s findings against him.

He is not facing criminal charges over the incident after his trial was aborted due to juror misconduct and prosecutors declined to push forward with a retrial.

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