Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

Financially – this verdict is massive blow to Donald Trump. He has been ordered to pay $354 million – far more than he has on hand in cash.

But his empire was spared from one of the worst potential scenarios – the cancellation of its business licenses, known as the corporate death penalty.

Instead, the judge ordered two tiers of oversight – an independent monitor to report to the court for up to three years and a separate independent director of compliance to be installed.

Prosecutors wanted Trump to be banned from the property industry in New York that catapulted him to international fame, and ultimately the White House.

But instead, the judge barred him for three years.

The judge said his decisions were necessary to protect the integrity of the marketplace in NY, the financial capital of world.

He also criticised the defendants for not showing remorse.

In a statement, Trump called the verdict undeniable election interference.

His family and lawyers called the ruling unfair and indicated they plan to appeal.

Kayla Epstein
US reporter

I've just heard from Steve Cohen, a law professor at New York Law School, who says that Justice Engoron's ruling went just about as far as it could to punish Trump.

The ruling was "an extremely broad finding of fraud, essentially adopting the position of that was advanced by the attorney general,' he says.

"It is a monumentally large order of disgorgement and penalties. And effectively it does everything in this court’s power to eliminate the ability of Donald Trump, and those who have operated on behalf of Donald Trump, to do business in the jurisdiction over which this court has authority - New York state."

But, Cohen said, the order not prevent him from doing business in other states, or bar him from running companies that are not registered in New York state.

In the footnotes on one of the 92 pages, Justice Engoron mentions how much one of Trump's expert witness was paid.

Eli Bartov, a professor at New York University, was used by Trump's legal team to talk about financial accounting, credit analysis and valuation.

The footnote says Bartov "bills at the rate of $1,350 per hour and has billed approximately 650 hours in this engagement". That's $877,500 Bartov was paid for his testimony.

So how was his expertise received by Engoron?

Well, the justice said: "By doggedly attempting to justify every misstatement, Professor Bartov lost all credibility in the eyes of the court".

Engoron specifically mentions Bartov's comments about the triplex penthouse in Trump Tower.

"Bartov insisted that the misrepresentation of the Triplex, resulting in a $200m overvaluation, was not intentional or material (leading the court to wonder in what universe is $200m immaterial)."

A major part of today's ruling is the three-year extension of Judge Barbara Jones' role as independent monitor over Trump-owned businesses.

Jones has been bashed by the Trump legal team, but in a footnote on page 86 of his ruling, Justice Engoron points out that they had helped put her name forward.

"The court did not appoint Judge Jones randomly or arbitrarily or by happenstance," Engoron writes.

"Rather, she was the only one of the three candidates that both sides proposed for the position of independent monitor."

But after she issued a report last month criticising the Trumps' financial practices, the "defendants changed their tune", says the judge.

Overnight, she went from "a universally-respected former judge with a stellar resume, nominated by defendants themselves" to someone who was "being unfair to defendants and out to get them".

Image source, Reuters

Let's look at what Justice Engoron thought about the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer - who was one of the first to react to the judge's ruling.

Cohen's testimony was one of the blockbuster days in the trial, it was the first time Trump and his old lawyer had been in the same room together in years after they had a falling-out.

Engoron says Cohen "was an important witness on behalf of the plaintiff, although hardly the linchpin that defendants have attempted to portray him to be".

"His testimony was significantly compromised by his having pleaded guilty to perjury and by some seeming contradictions in what he said at trial.

"However, carefully parsed, he testified that although Donald Trump did not expressly direct him to reverse engineer financial statements, he ordered him to do so indirectly, in his 'mob voice,'" Engoron says in his ruling.

"Although the animosity between the witness and the defendant is palpable, providing Cohen with an incentive to lie, the Court found his testimony credible."

Image source, Getty Images

We haven't yet heard from Donald Trump himself, whose last post on his Truth Social platform - after the ruling went up - is a complaint about an AI-generated image of him playing golf.

But his eldest son, Donald Jr, has just shared his reaction on X, formerly Twitter, as well as Truth.

"We’ve reached the point where your political beliefs combined with what venue your case is heard are the primary determinants of the outcome; not the facts of the case!" the Trump child wrote.

"It’s truly sad what’s happened to our country and I hope others see it before it’s too late to correct course!"

Madeline Halpert & Nada Tawfik
New York

Image source, Reuters

One of the biggest threats to Trump's businesses was the cancellation of business licenses, which some had referred to as the "corporate death penalty". Businesses licences are needed for Trump to run his New York companies.

In his ruling, Engoron says such a penalty was no longer needed for now because he appointed a "two-tiered oversight" team, including an independent monitor and a so-called "director of compliance".

This oversight team would be able to decide if such steps were necessary in the future.

This decision likely allowed Engoron to dodge "some of the biggest issues that could've arisen on appeal", says University of Michigan professor Will Thomas.

The decision also recognizes that the Trump Organization's fraudulent activities were just a part - but not all - of its business, says former federal prosecutor Sarah Krissoff.

“It’s a factor that’s going to help this decision be upheld when it reaches the higher courts," she says.

Trump, his two adult sons - Donald Jr and Eric - and the wider Trump Organization were found to have massively inflated the value of their properties.

Trump over-egged his wealth on financial statements, in order to get more favourable loans from banks and insurers.

His Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida was over-valued by 2,300% in one financial statement, and his Trump Tower triplex in New York City was presented as three times its actual size.

The judge in the case, Arthur Engoron, already ruled that Trump committed business fraud and repeatedly misrepresented his wealth by millions of dollars.

But we've just found out the penalties. He's been ordered to pay $354.9m and has been banned from doing business in New York for three years. His two sons must pay $4m each and are also banned for two years.

More here.

More now from the 92-page ruling, external, where Justice Engoron goes into detail on the various allegations that underpin specific Trump-owned assets.

He begins with how a triplex inside Manhattan's Trump Tower was valued as if it was 30,000 sq ft when it was in fact one-third of that size.

The judge notes how Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg corrected the square footage but maintained an inflated property value by instructing a subordinate to "use the 'most expensive' and 'record shattering' penthouse sales when calculating price per square foot".

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from New York

Trump and his organisation have been found liable to pay $354,868,768 (£281m).

On top of this looming penalty, however, he already owes the writer E Jean Carroll $83.3m in damages from a separate defamation case that concluded in January.

His legal fees are also mounting as he battles four criminal cases at the federal and state level.

One calculation from Forbes Magazine put Trump's total net worth at $2.6bn.

But still, over $400m is a lot of money, even for a wealthy former president, says Will Thomas, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

"Will it bankrupt him? No," he says. "But I also don’t remember anyone in recent history paying that much."

More about how Trump might pay the fine here.

Image source, Reuters

Throughout the 10-week trial in New York, the prosecution and defence argued about the value of Donald Trump's private club in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.

In the ruling, Justice Engoron says:

The historic Palm Beach property has deed restrictions which mean it can only be used as a private club.

The land cannot be subdivided, and it requires considerable preservation expenses for the estate, which was built in 1927 for businesswoman and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post.

This deed came about in the 1990s when Mr Trump said Mar-a-Lago was too expensive to be preserved as a private residence, calling it a "white elephant" that was "almost impossible to sell".

You can read more about the value of Mar-a-Lago here.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from New York

Justice Engoron's 92-page ruling provides painstaking detail explaining his reasoning behind a large fine and restrictions on how the Trump family conducts business, experts say.

His decision was "well-drafted, very thoughtful and comprehensive", University of Michigan professor Will Thomas says.

Diana Florence, a former federal prosecutor, says Engoron worked hard to lay out the details of the case and was "savvy" in the way he wrote his opinion.

“He took pains to really lay it out - to paint the entire picture," she says.

He may have done so because he knows the true audience for his ruling is an appellate court. Trump's team has just said he will appeal.

Engoron "made a record - and after this it’ll be up to the appellate courts to decide," Florence says.

Image source, Getty Images

Alina Habba, who represented Donald Trump as his lawyer and spokeswoman in this case, has just confirmed her client will appeal Justice Engoron's ruling.

"This verdict is a manifest injustice - plain and simple," she writes.

"It is the culmination of a multi-year, politically fuelled witch hunt that was designed to 'take down Donald Trump' before Letitia James ever stepped foot into the attorney general’s office."

Habba further claims that testimony in the case "proved that there was no wrongdoing, no crime, and no victim".

She also warns that "if this decision stands, it will serve as a signal to every single American that New York is no longer open for business".

More now from Justice Engoron on what he says is the defendants' lack of remorse.

The crimes they are accused of were not murder, arson or robbing a bank, but "a venial sin", he writes.

"Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff," he says, referring to the financial criminal. "Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. Instead, they adopt a 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' posture that the evidence belies."

Engoron says his actions on Friday are "to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace" but Trump's "refusal to admit error - indeed, to continue it, according to the Independent Monitor - constrains this court to conclude that they will engage in it going forward unless judicially restrained".

Justice Engoron's ruling tears, external into Donald Trump and his co-defendants for their lack of remorse.

He justifies installing an independent overseer on the Trump Organization by quoting the British poet Alexander Pope: "To err is human, to forgive is divine."

But Engoron writes that the "defendants apparently are of a different mind".

"After some four years of investigation and litigation, the only error (“inadvertent,” of course) that they acknowledge is the tripling of the size of the Trump Tower Penthouse, which cannot be gainsaid," he continues.

"Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological."

Image source, Getty Images

Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen, who was a key witness in this trial, is among the first to share his reaction.

"Ruling of $354 million dollars just issued in Donald’s NYAG civil fraud Trial," he wrote on X a few minutes ago, as media outlets broke the news.

Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, also shares part of Justice Engoron's conclusion - in which the judge writes: "Michael Cohen told the truth".

Cohen testified for hours in this trial about how Trump inflated the value of his assets.

He's also expected to play a starring role in Trump's first criminal trial that begins next month in New York over alleged hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

One of the very early comments from Justice Arthur Engoron is about the witnesses Trump's legal team used in the trial.

Engoron says: "When confronted at trial with the statements, defendants’ fact and expert witnesses simply denied reality, and defendants failed to accept responsibility or to impose internal controls to prevent future recurrences".

Image source, EPA

Justice Engoron's decision talks about how New York City is one of the financial capitals of the world, and that means it's important to follow the rules.

He says even though loans were paid on time, the statements made by the Trump Organization were false. And he says these are harmful to the marketplace.

"The common excuse that 'everybody does it' is all the more reason to strive for honesty and transparency and to be vigilant in enforcing the rules," Engoron says.

"Here, despite the false financial statements, it is undisputed that defendants have made all required payments on time; the next group of lenders to receive bogus statements might not be so lucky."

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from New York

Experts tell the BBC that this ruling is a big blow on how Trump conducts business in New York.

But the Trump Organization managed to avoid one of the worst penalties - the cancellation of its business licences, which some experts say could have effectively ended Trump's business empire.

But the appointment of an independent monitor means Trump and his children will have little say over how their business is run, says Will Thomas, a professor at University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

"I think this will be very disruptive," he says. "This trial has made clear just how sloppily the Trump Organization is run as a business when it comes to its financial practices."

The state of New York, which was prosecuting Trump in this civil case, asked the judge to do several things:

• Fines: Attorney General Letitia James asked the judge to fine Trump $370m (£290m) for what she calls the "outrageous" business fraud schemes. She says this is how much she estimates was made in saved interest and other "ill-gotten gains". What the judge ruled: Trump and his organisation must pay $354.9m.
• Ban from doing business: She also asked for "permanent [real estate] industry bars" on Trump, and five-year bans on Trump’s two adult sons. What the judge ruled: Trump has been banned from doing business in New York for three years, and his sons for two years.
• An independent overseer: James also asked for an independent monitor to closely oversee the Trump Organization for at least the next five years. What the judge ruled: An independent monitor will oversee the organisation for three years.