Britney Spears has scored another major legal victory against her father, Jamie Spears.
During a Los Angeles court hearing on July 13 that E! News was present for, Judge Brenda Penny ruled that Jamie must sit for a deposition and produce documents related to the alleged surveillance of Britney as part of an ongoing investigation into his role as conservator of her estate. The conservatorship was terminated in November 2021 after 13 years.
Jamie and his legal team have less than 30 days to present their documents and must be deposed by Aug. 12.
Following the ruling, Jamie's lawyer stated that the patriarch "is eager to testify and set the record straight."
"When the court has the opportunity to review actual evidence," Alex Weingarten, Jamie's lawyer, told E! News exclusively, "Not just the wild and baseless accusations being hurled by Britney and her counsel, we know that Jamie will be vindicated."
The pop star's lawyer, Matthew Rosengart, said in a statement to E! News that they appreciated the judge's "thoughtful and correct" ruling.
"We are pleased that after he has evaded his deposition for many months, failing to appear three times, James Spears has now been ordered to sit for his deposition, in Los Angeles," Rosengart said in a statement to E! News, "and to produce all the documents we have been seeking since last year and we look forward to both."
His statement continued, "We plea again for a sense of decency from Mr. Spears. He was suspended, and the conservatorship is over. He professes to 'love' his daughter. If that were true, he would do the right thing, and simply move on. That is what any decent and loving father would do. He still has that chance and we hope he heeds it."
Jamie's legal team requested that Britney sit for a deposition as well. However, her team pushed back, claiming that it would "re-traumatize" Britney. The judge did not make a final decision on this and said she needed more time to consider both legal teams' arguments, delaying her decision until July 27.
The surveillance allegations stem from "Controlling Britney Spears," a 2021 episode of the docu-series The New York Times Presents, in which a former member of Britney's security team claimed that her father monitored her phone and bugged her bedroom with "an audio recording device" without her knowledge.
At the time, Britney's attorney Mathew Rosengart told the Times that the accusations "must be fully and aggressively investigated."
Jamie's team has called the accusations "salacious and false," according to court documents filed on June 29 and obtained by E! News on July 1.
"In fact, there are no documents regarding the alleged bugging or surveillance of Britney's bedroom, and this is because it never happened," Jamie's legal team argued in the filing, noting that they've submitted documents to Britney's attorney, "showing that the assertions of Britney's counsel regarding the so-called 'spying operation' have no merit."
In May, the singer's lawyer filed a motion and claimed that Jamie "has engaged in stonewalling and obstruction—for over six months—dodging his deposition and repeatedly failing to respond to simple requests for basic information."
At the time, Rosengart said that he hoped to depose Jamie to question him about "the spying operation alleged and exposed by a whistleblower and The New York Times," as well as other allegations.