A UK court on Monday heard a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump over a salacious dossier compiled by a former British MI6 agent that contained unproven allegations against the US ex-president.
Trump, 77, is suing Christopher Steele and the company he founded over the report which sparked a political firestorm when it was published just before his inauguration in January 2017.
The so-called Steele dossier contained unverified and controversial information about Trump and Russia that the former Republican leader has repeatedly denied, including allegations of sexual misbehavior.
It included claims that Trump had been "compromised" by the Russian security service, FSB, and that Moscow had damning videotapes of Trump with prostitutes during a 2013 trip to the Russian capital.
It also alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin "supported and directed" an operation to "cultivate" Trump as a presidential candidate for "at least five years".
Some of the allegations fuelled a probe by US special prosecutor Robert Mueller which concluded in 2019 that the Russian government had interfered with the 2016 election but found no evidence of collusion with Trump's team.
"President Trump begins this case because he seeks a vindication of his legal rights... that the statements in these memoranda are false," his lawyer Hugh Tomlinson told London's High Court.
Tomlinson said Trump wanted to give evidence in the High Court to prove they are false.
Trump already has a packed court schedule as he bids to win the Republican Party's presidential nomination and regain the White House in next year's election.
The wealthy real estate magnate spent nearly three days in a New York court this week listening to a civil fraud lawsuit brought against his company.
- 'Fake' -
In criminal cases, he is to go on trial in Washington next year for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and in Florida on charges of mishandling top secret government documents.
He also faces racketeering charges in Georgia and a hush-money case in New York. He has plead not guilty in all cases.
Trump has repeatedly denounced the Steele dossier, which was leaked to Buzzfeed, as "fake". The New York Times has determined there was no corroborating evidence to support many of its claims.
The data protection claim against Steele and his Orbis Business Intelligence seeks unspecified compensation for "serious distress and reputational damage".
Monday's hearing was the first of two days of preliminary hearings in which Orbis will argue that the case be dismissed. The company claims it was not responsible for the dossier's publication.
Trump argues that the firm unlawfully processed his personal data.
The dossier, produced before Trump's 2016 election win against Hillary Clinton, was commissioned by Democratic Party consultants.
Trump sued Clinton, Democratic Party leaders and Steele over the dossier in the US last year.
In November, 2021, Igor Danchenko, a consultant and former researcher in Russian affairs at the Brookings Institution who was a key source for the dossier, was charged for lying to FBI investigators about his sources for the report.
Steele, 59, ran the Russia desk of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6.
He and Orbis were previously sued for libel by Russian national Aleksej Gubarev. In October 2020, a UK judge dismissed Gubarev's claim that they were legally liable for the dossier's publication.