Trump said last year that the focus of the meeting at Trump Tower was Russia adoptions, but it later emerged that a person who arranged the meeting told Donald Trump Jr. via email that Russians were coming to provide incriminating information about Hillary Clinton. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images Judge rules against Russian-owned firm linked to Trump Tower meeting Prevezon loses court fight over settlement in money laundering suit.

A federal judge has ruled against a Russian-owned firm whose lawyer was a key player in the controversial June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and top Trump campaign officials.

U.S. District Court Judge William Pauley rejected claims by the firm, Prevezon Holdings, that the U.S. government failed to live up to its obligations under a May 2017 settlement of claims that Prevezon was involved in money laundering allegedly aimed at avoiding Russian taxes.


Under the deal, the U.S. was supposed to abandon its efforts to freeze about 3 million euros Prevezon was owed in the Netherlands. U.S. officials said they notified the Dutch government that the U.S. was no longer seeking those funds, but a prominent critic of the Russian government, Bill Browder, apparently persuaded the Netherlands to refuse to release the money.

Accusing the U.S. of violating the settlement, Prevezon then held back $5.9 million it owed the U.S. under the deal.

In an 18-page decision issued Friday, the Manhattan-based Pauley said the U.S. has lived up to its obligations and the firm was still required to pay the money with interest.

However, the judge also alluded to the fact that the suit is at the center of a saga of international intrigue, which includes the now-famous Trump Tower meeting and the role a private investigation firm once working for Prevezon, Fusion GPS, also played in preparing the so-called dossier on ties between President Donald Trump and Russia.

"The events giving rise to the litigation span the globe and read like a John le Carre novel," wrote Pauley, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.

Prevezon attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya was in the U.S. to attend an appeals court argument in the Prevezon case on the same day she took part in the Trump Tower meeting with Trump's son Donald Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Trump said last year that the focus of the meeting was Russia adoptions, but it later emerged that a person who arranged the meeting told Donald Trump Jr. via email that Russians were coming to provide incriminating information about Hillary Clinton.

Pauley said Prevezon wasn't entitled to hold back its payment because U.S. officials met and shared information with Dutch officials looking into Browder's complaint.

"None of the circumstances here suggest any unusual conduct or animus by the Government," Pauley wrote.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, James Margolin, declined to comment on the decision. "We’ll let the opinion speak for itself," he said.

A lawyer for Prevezon, Kevin Reed, had no immediate comment on the ruling.