Nine Entertainment has secured a minor win in its attempts to recover legal costs from the financial backers of war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith, after his failed defamation case.

The Seven Network and Kerry Stokes’s private company, Australian Capital Equity (ACE), were today ordered by the Federal Court to hand over documents related to lawyers’ attendance at court and correspondence about the case.

Both of those entities had loan agreements with Mr Roberts-Smith at different times and Nine is chasing a third-party costs order against them.

But they had attempted to have subpoenas from Nine set aside, arguing material such as attendance at court by lawyers couldn’t “rationally” support a third-party costs order.

Among the documents subpoenaed include “all invoices” issued by two law firms that were engaged to observe Mr Roberts-Smith’s legal battle on behalf of the companies.

Justice Anthony Besanko today ruled in favour of Nine.

In a written judgement, he said the subpoenas had a “legitimate forensic purpose”, however he ruled their scope should be narrowed.

“In my respectful opinion, the flaw in the argument for setting aside the subpoenas is that it sets the test of relevance at too high a level,” Justice Besanko said.

“The part played in the litigation by Seven Network (Operations) Limited and ACE is undoubtedly relevant to the third party costs application, although it is but one factor.”

The civil proceedings were dismissed last month when the judge found there was substantial truth to allegations including four murders in Afghanistan and bullying, to the civil standard of proof.

The court has previously heard Mr Roberts-Smith accepts he should pay the legal costs on an indemnity basis from March 2020 onwards.

But there is still a dispute about who should pay for costs incurred between August 2018, when the case was launched, and March 2020.

The costs order Nine is seeking against ACE proposes that it should cover costs from either June 2019, March 2020 or November 2020.

Justice Besanko said the significance of those dates was that “on or about each of those dates, the respondents made an offer to the applicant to resolve the proceedings”.

An August 2019 letter setting out the loan agreement with Seven stated that Mr Roberts-Smith was “a target by our opposition (Nine/Fairfax)” and had a “strong case to defend your reputation”.

The letter records that “the Chairman will guarantee repayment” and under the terms of the loan, it must be repaid either 12 months from the end of Mr Roberts-Smith’s employment at Seven, or 12 months after legal proceedings, including appeals, conclude.

Mr Roberts-Smith has until next Wednesday to file an appeal.