A financial investigation firm has agreed to a last minute reduction in Rudy Giuliani‘s $324,843 bill for a bankruptcy probe.
The firm, Global Data Risk, filed an emergency application on Thursday, seeking a bankruptcy court’s approval of the deal it struck with Giuliani’s bankruptcy trustee.
However, the former New York mayor has not agreed to the deal and claims that he was overcharged by more than $150,000.
Rudy Giuliani signs an autograph at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The former NYC Mayor is seeking a reduction in the amount he has to pay a financial investigation firm.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Global Data Risk [GDR] was hired by Giuliani’s bankruptcy creditors to investigate his finances and ensure he was not hiding assets or income.
Giuliani declared bankruptcy in December last year after a jury awarded $148 million to two Georgia election workers who had won a defamation lawsuit against him. As an attorney for Donald Trump in 2020, Giuliani falsely accused mother and daughter Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss of adding ballots for Joe Biden, who won the state.
Judge Sean Lane has agreed to allow Giuliani to cancel his bankruptcy application but ruled that GDR must first be paid for their financial investigations.
Newsweek sought email comment on Friday from GDR and from Giuliani’s spokesman.
On Thursday, GDR informed Lane that they had struck a deal on Guiliani’s fees with the U.S Trustee, the government office that monitors bankruptcy cases.
GDR did not reveal the terms of the agreement.
The deal came just before GDR was about to file its response to Giuliani’s claim that he was overcharged.
“Prior to the objection deadline for the Application, the United States Trustee for the Southern District of New York (the “U.S. Trustee”) reached out to GDR with certain informal comments to, and questions concerning, the Application,” GDR’s lawyers wrote in Thursday’s filing.
“In an effort to resolve these comments and answer questions prior to the Final Fee Hearing, GDR engaged in productive and good-faith discussions with the U.S. Trustee. On September 19, 2024, GDR and the U.S. Trustee reached a resolution whereby GDR agreed to voluntarily reduce the amount of fees and expenses for which it is seeking this Court’s approval on a final basis,” they added.
They also noted that Giuliani’s formal objection to GDR’s fee is now the sole obstacle to ending the dispute.
“Now that GDR has resolved the U.S. Trustee’s concerns with respect to the Application, the Opposition is the sole objection to the Application,” they state in Thursday’s filing.
In a filing on September 11, Giuliani’s lawyer formally opposed GDR’s fees and accused the firm of overcharging him by $151,000. Giuliani’s legal team claimed that Global Data Risk, “routinely engaged in [ …] duplicative billing.”
GDR’s team asked to be allowed to file a late response to Giuliani to “respond to the remaining contested issues set forth in the [Giuliani] Opposition.”
