Winnie-the-Pooh is at the centre of a legal storm over his adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Affable children’s character Winnie the Pooh has found himself at the centre of a legal battle as a film company takes on Disney for ownership rights to the bear and his friends.

A judge has rejected an attempt by the granddaughter of Winnie the Pooh creator A A Milne to reclaim the family’s copyrights and reassign them to The Walt Disney Company.

Disney was fined dlrs 90,000 (€101,800) last year for destroying boxes of documents relating to a dispute over royalties owed on sales of Winnie the Pooh products, US court documents showed.