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Topics: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard
Joe Harker
Lawyers for Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were today unable to reach a last-minute settlement.
The actors are instead likely set for a long process of appeals, as Heard has said she will appeal against the verdict delivered at the recent defamation trial.
In it, she was ordered to pay ex-husband Depp around $10 million in damages, while he in turn was ordered to pay her about $2 million.
With no last-minute settlement being reached, the verdict given by the jury is finalised and the legal battles between the pair are likely to drag on.
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Per Insider, lawyers for the actors today met in an attempt to head off the possibility that Heard might appeal the verdict in exchange for taking the millions in damages due to be paid off the table.
The door for a settlement had been left open by Judge Penney Azcarate, who did not immediately enter the trial's verdict into the docket and instead gave both parties a deadline of 24 June to work something out.
Benjamin Chew, one of Depp's lawyers, had previously suggested that the actor might waive the damages Heard is required to pay him if the pair could reach a settlement where she didn't appeal the verdict.
Suggestions of a settlement were raised after Elaine Bredehoft, part of Heard's legal team, revealed her client couldn't afford to pay the court-ordered damages.
Explaining the decision, a spokesperson for Heard said 'you don’t decline to appeal if you know you are right', indicating that the 36-year-old will seek to overturn the jury's verdict.
It's also possible that Depp might file an appeal of his own against the $2 million in damages he has been ordered to pay as his legal team objected to them in proceedings.
The longer the legal process drags on the more expensive the cost of the damages will grow as the fees are subject to an annual 6% interest rate per year.
Heard now has a 30-day period in which to file a notice of appeal against the defamation verdict, which centres on an article she wrote for the Washington Post.
In the article she condemned 'sexual violence' and wrote that she was a 'public figure representing domestic abuse.
Depp was not explicitly mentioned in the piece but the trial jury ruled that parts of the article were defamatory towards the 59-year-old actor.
The jury voted that Heard had defamed Depp on all three counts which went to trial, while they also found that Depp's former lawyer had defamed Heard on one count.
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