A California Superior Court has ordered executives from the Stoli Group to testify in the ongoing legal battle between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie over Château Miraval, marking the latest courtroom gain for the actor in a dispute that has stretched across multiple jurisdictions and years of bitter litigation.
Judge Cindy Pánuco on June 17 partly approved a motion requiring depositions from several business associates connected to Jolie’s former stake in the French winery, including Stoli Group spirits executive Alexey Oliynik, who sits on the company’s board of directors. The court instructed the companies to provide dates for Oliynik’s testimony by Aug. 7, and to confirm the availability of Marina Troyanovskaya, the Stoli Group’s head of marketing, by that same deadline. Representatives from Tenute del Mondo and Nouvel — the investment entity that once held Jolie’s 50 percent share in Château Miraval — are also covered by the order.
Overcoming a Swiss Residency Defense
Compelling that testimony required overcoming significant obstacles. In June 2025, attorneys for Pitt 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 eliminates that defense, forcing the Stoli Group’s principals to participate directly in the litigation. A source said that “Stoli parties will now have to face the music and be transparent about the transaction.”
Pitt’s attorneys had argued that investors from the company held firsthand knowledge of Jolie’s 2021 sale of the winery — which the former couple jointly owned — to Tenute del Mondo, Stoli Group’s wine business unit. However, Judge Pánuco did not grant every request Pitt made, rejecting his motion for sanctions or financial penalties against the opposing side related to the discovery process.
A String of Procedural Victories
The latest order extends a pattern of procedural wins for Pitt as the case inches toward trial. A Michigan judge found that lawyers representing the Stoli Group’s side had improperly blocked testimony during a key deposition, when former Stoli General Counsel Todd Culyba had been instructed not to answer 33 questions during a December deposition. 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.
On June 24, the California Court of Appeal reversed an earlier finding that had minimized the role of 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.” 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.
Origins of the Château Miraval Battle
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. 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.
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.
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.
The Path Forward
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.