Former Intelligence Officer's Firm Sues Donald Trump in Scotland to Recover Mounting Legal Costs

A corporate intelligence firm established by a former British intelligence official has initiated legal proceedings in a Scottish court against Donald Trump in an attempt to recover more than £800,000 in outstanding legal fees.

The case has been brought before Ayr Sheriff Court, where Orbis Business Intelligence is pursuing assets linked to the Trump Turnberry golf property in Ayrshire. The action marks the latest phase in an ongoing international legal conflict between the former US president and the London-based investigative consultancy.

The financial dispute originates from a data protection lawsuit that Trump previously filed in London against Orbis and its director, Christopher Steele. That litigation concluded unfavorably for Trump after the High Court of Justice dismissed his claim, prompting the court to order him to cover the substantial defense costs incurred by the intelligence consultancy.

Steele, a former head of the Russia desk at the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, widely known as MI6, originally compiled a dossier in 2016 examining alleged links between Trump's election campaign and the Russian government. The document was commissioned during the 2016 presidential race by a law firm acting on behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

The dossier featured an array of uncorroborated intelligence assertions, suggesting that Russian authorities had cultivated Trump over an extended period, had gathered compromising material against him, and that he had engaged in illicit activities including sex parties.

Trump consistently and vehemently denied every allegation contained within the dossier. The research became widely public in 2017 after the media website BuzzFeed published the compiled material without authorization, triggering years of political controversy and subsequent legal actions brought by Trump against those involved in its creation.

Trump's English data protection case against Orbis was formally thrown out by the High Court in February 2024 after a judge concluded that the legal claim had been brought out of time. Following the dismissal, the London court ruled that Trump was liable to pay £680,000 toward the legal expenses incurred by Orbis in defending against the action.

Because Steele and Orbis hold no assets or ties in the local Scottish jurisdiction, the legal matter was transferred to Ayr Sheriff Court specifically because the Turnberry resort is geographically situated within its jurisdictional boundaries. Sheriff officers executed formal court documents at the luxury golf resort last September to commence the recovery process.

In the Scottish court paperwork, Trump is formally designated as a "debtor." The initial court filings revealed that, with the accumulation of statutory interest over time, the financial recovery sought through two separate applications by Orbis had risen to £789,812.91.

During an online procedural hearing held before Sheriff Millar, senior counsel representing Orbis, Duncan Hamilton KC, told the court that Trump had consistently refused or failed to satisfy the judgment debt in the 18 months since the English court issued its cost order. Hamilton noted that the accrued interest has now pushed the total sum claimed to well over £800,000.

Hamilton explained that Orbis had been forced to expend substantial time, effort, and financial resources attempting to enforce the English court judgment across various jurisdictions. He emphasized that Trump had repeatedly and explicitly asserted full ownership of the Turnberry property, both within formal US federal asset declarations and in a witness statement submitted under oath to the High Court in London.

The King's Counsel argued that the current defense strategy adopted by the resort places Trump in severe reputational and legal vulnerability. By presenting arguments that contradict his previous formal declarations of ownership, Hamilton argued, Turnberry's legal team is implicitly suggesting that the former president's prior sworn statements were not truthful.

The corporate entity that holds the Ayrshire resort, SLC Turnberry Limited, is vigorously contesting the enforcement attempts by challenging Trump's status as the ultimate owner of the venue. The company maintains that Orbis cannot target the resort's holdings to satisfy a personal judgment against the former president.

Turnberry's legal representative, advocate David Massaro, clarified to the court that the company was not alleging that Trump had provided false statements in other forums. Instead, Massaro explained that Trump's financial stake in the Scottish course is held through a trust structure established in the United States, in which Trump is named as a beneficiary.

Massaro submitted that the underlying shares in the resort are held directly by trustees rather than by Trump individually. According to Turnberry's legal position, this specific trust arrangement means there is no sufficient legal connection between Trump and the corporate ownership of the property to allow the enforcement of the debt against the resort.

Sheriff Millar concluded the procedural session by scheduling a further hearing for November to address the complex jurisdictional and structural ownership disputes. The sheriff also instructed that Trump be formally notified of the updated and increased monetary total currently being demanded by Orbis, as the corporate intelligence firm continues its efforts to claim funds from the golf venue acquired by the Trump family in June 2014.