Brad Pitt secured another procedural victory in his bitter dispute with ex-wife Angelina Jolie over the French winery Château Miraval, as the Superior Court of California granted a motion on June 17 requiring testimony from executives of the Stoli Group, an international wine and spirits company whose investment division bought Jolie’s stake in the property.
Judge Cindy Pánuco partly approved Pitt’s request to depose several business associates connected to Jolie’s former stake in the winery. The order covers Stoli Group spirits executive Alexey Oliynik, who sits on the company’s board of directors, as well as representatives from Tenute del Mondo and Nouvel—the investment entity that once held Jolie’s 50 percent share in Château Miraval. The court instructed the companies to provide Pitt’s legal team with dates for Oliynik’s testimony by Aug. 7. By that same deadline, they must also confirm the availability of Marina Troyanovskaya, the Stoli Group’s head of marketing.
Swiss Executive Previously Refused to Testify
The path to compelling that testimony has not been straightforward. In June 2025, Pitt’s team filed court documents seeking to depose Oliynik, who allegedly refused to produce relevant documents or sit for questioning, contending that he could not be compelled to do so as a resident of Switzerland. The June 17 ruling now removes that obstacle, forcing the Stoli Group’s principals to engage directly with the litigation. A source said that “Stoli parties will now have to face the music and be transparent about the transaction.”
Judge Pánuco did not grant every request Pitt made. She rejected his motion for sanctions or financial penalties against the opposing side related to the discovery process, making this a partial rather than complete victory.
Broader String of Courtroom Gains
The ruling represents the latest in a string of courtroom gains for Pitt as the case inches toward trial. The June 17 ruling follows a significant procedural development when a Michigan judge found that lawyers representing the Stoli Group’s side had improperly blocked testimony during a key deposition.
Former Stoli General Counsel Todd Culyba had been instructed not to answer 33 questions during a December deposition, a restriction the court determined was improper. The blocked questions probed the involvement of Yuri Shefler—the Stoli Group’s ultimate beneficial owner—in Jolie’s sale of her indirect interest in Miraval. The judge ruled that attorney-client privilege did not shield the business aspects of the transaction, and ordered Culyba to sit for an additional deposition to answer those questions along with any related follow-ups.
In a parallel development, the California Court of Appeal on June 24 reversed an earlier finding that had minimized the role of Yuri Shefler, the Stoli Group’s billionaire owner, in the winery sale. The appellate court was openly skeptical of Shefler’s claim that he had little involvement, writing that it “defies credulity that Shefler, a sophisticated businessman, would risk almost $40 million on a transaction about which he knew nothing and with which he had no involvement.” The ruling clears the way for Pitt’s team to seek Shefler’s own testimony—a separate hearing on whether he must sit for a deposition is scheduled for July 8. Shefler, a Russian-born businessman based in Switzerland, has been a recurring target of Pitt’s legal strategy since 2023.
In December 2025, Pitt had also secured a separate discovery win when a judge ordered Jolie to produce certain unredacted, non-attorney communications tied to the winery dispute. However, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge separately denied Pitt’s effort to force Jolie to hand over a set of private emails, ruling he had not met the threshold to overcome her attorney-client privilege claims.
The Roots of the Dispute
Brad Pitt, 62, and Angelina Jolie, 51, purchased Château Miraval together in 2008. The sprawling estate in southern France became one of the world’s most recognizable celebrity-owned wineries. The couple finalized their divorce in December 2024 after years of separation proceedings that had stretched far beyond family matters into contested questions of business ownership and contractual obligation.
In 2022, Pitt filed a lawsuit contending that Jolie had sold her stake to Tenute del Mondo in 2021 in violation of an agreement that neither party would do so without the other’s consent. Jolie denied any such agreement existed and filed a countersuit, accusing Pitt of waging what she described as a vindictive campaign against her. In 2023, Pitt filed additional court documents seeking financial compensation over the sale.
Pitt’s legal team has also argued that the Stoli Group’s reputation drew criticism and faced boycotts linked to its alleged connection with Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and a homophobic legislative agenda—damage that, in their view, harmed an enterprise Pitt had carefully cultivated. Jolie’s camp pushed back, characterizing that framing as a xenophobic and factually inaccurate smear of Shefler, whom her team described as a Russian exile and long-standing critic of Putin. An insider close to Jolie maintained that she chose Stoli as a distribution partner solely to benefit the business and the six children she and Pitt share—Maddox, 24; Pax, 22; Zahara, 21; Shiloh, 20; and twins Knox and Vivienne, 17.
What Comes Next
Tenute del Mondo and Nouvel each filed formal objections to the deposition requests prior to the June 17 ruling, arguing the testimony was unnecessary for the case. The court’s order overrode those objections, setting Aug. 7 as the deadline for scheduling key depositions.
Jolie’s attorney, Paul Murphy, moved to minimize the significance of the latest ruling, saying it would not change the trajectory of the case. Murphy said the decision does not affect the substance of the legal dispute and that Jolie anticipates prevailing at next year’s trial, allowing the family to finally concentrate on recovery and moving forward. The wider dispute over Château Miraval remains unresolved, with Murphy stating that Jolie welcomes the opportunity to put the conflict to rest at trial and allow the family to finally move forward.