The Johnny Depp effect? Now Brad Pitt wants JURY TRIAL against Angelina Jolie

The US may be prepared for another extravagant trial after the high-profile Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial. According to reports, Brad Pitt has asked for a jury trial against his ex-wife Angelina Jolie because he claims she sold his winery Château Miraval, a 1,000-acre vineyard in the South of France, to Russian entrepreneur Yuri Shefler without his permission. The actor asserts that he and Jolie have a contract stating that neither would sell their stock in Miraval without the approval of the other.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court received an amended complaint from Pitt on Friday, June 3. By selling her shares in their business, Jolie, according to Pitt, “sought to inflict hurt on him” on purpose. “Pitt and Jolie bought the vineyard as a family business and the château as a house to live in with their kids. They made the pact that they would never sell their individual shares of Miraval without the other’s approval. In 2014, the couple was married at Miraval, where they also celebrated the holidays with their kids, according to court records.

The statement stated, “The vineyard became Pitt’s passion—and a lucrative one, since Miraval, under Pitt’s supervision, has evolved into a multimillion-dollar international corporation and one of the world’s most highly acclaimed producers of rosé wine.” “Jolie, on the other hand, made no contribution to Miraval’s achievement. Instead, she relied on the consent right she owed him and a right of first refusal her corporate entity owed his to allow Pitt to invest cash and labor into the company.

Pitt labeled Tenute del Mondo, the wine branch of the Stoli Group, in the documents as a “hostile third-party rival set on acquiring control of Miraval,” and Jolie sold her ownership in Chateau Miraval to Tenute del Mondo in October 2021. Yuri Shefler, the Russian oligarch who runs the Stoli Group and whose flagship vodka, Stolichnaya, has come under criticism during that nation’s invasion of Ukraine, indirectly owns and controls Mondo. In 2008, Jolie and Pitt bought a majority share in Château Miraval, where they later wed in 2014. Despite divorcing, the two had continued to work together at Miraval, a wine label made from grapes grown on the site and noted for its rosé.

In February of this year, Pitt brought legal action against Jolie for splitting the interest. Robert Olson, Jolie’s attorney, stated to Newsweek at the time the complaint was filed, “Press is claiming that Mr. Pitt has filed another lawsuit against Ms. Jolie. The media, who seem to have been given access to the report to produce a press narrative before Ms. Jolie ever been served, is how we are knowing about the complaint since she has not yet been served.

Pitt claims in the court document that Jolie “purposefully misled Pitt and willfully violated Pitt’s contractual rights” in an effort to harm his expanding company. That is exactly what Shefler did, according to the complaint, “just as Jolie imagined it.” Shefler “has initiated a hostile takeover of the wine business, upsetting Miraval’s operations and demanding access to Miraval’s sensitive and proprietary information for the advantage of his competing enterprise” after claiming to have acquired Jolie’s shareholding in Miraval. Jolie “has endeavored to push Pitt into collaboration with a stranger, and worse yet, a stranger with poisonous associations and goals,” the complaint continued. The complaint claims that Pitt and his LLC, Mondo Bongo, “seek a trial by jury” to resolve the dispute.

Source: meaww.com