Court dismisses Princess’s “inappropriate” and “misconceived” application

Tuesday 19 October 2021

The Royal Court has thrown out an application from an Italian princess who sought to avoid paying a £2m fine until she got a guarantee it would be paid back, if she wins an appeal to the Privy Council.

Princess Camilla de Bourbon des Deux Siciles was fined by the Royal Court in December 2020 and given until 15 July 2021 to pay after being found in contempt of court for not disclosing the whereabouts of certain assets, including paintings.

The Monaco-based aristocrat appealed the judgment arguing the Royal Court had been wrong to fine her on a number of grounds.

The judgment was upheld by the Court of Appeal and she has since taken her case to the Privy Council, which is yet to hand down its judgment. 

On 15 July, Advocate Hiren Mistry, who is representing the Princess, approached the Court seeking more time to pay the remaining £1.8m of the fine - £200,000 having already been paid - as well as a “bank guarantee” from the Court that would remain in place until all appeals against the judgment had been determined. 

Pictured: Advocate Hiren Mistry is representing the Princess.

The Bailiff’s Judicial Secretary replied that the Royal Court Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith considered the request “wholly misconceived” and that there were “no circumstances in which the Court could issue a guarantee even if that was legally possible." The email, however, added that his view was subject to Advocate Mistry “persuading him otherwise” with the relevant authorities.

The lawyer complained the same day that the Commissioner had already made up his mind before hearing the legal argument but was reminded by the Bailiff’s Judicial Secretary that he was “open to be persuaded otherwise”.

The Princess then wrote to the Bailiff in July 2021 stressing the importance of the guarantee and sharing similar complaints as her lawyer. The Bailiff responded to the Judicial Secretary that he didn’t believe the Commissioner was conflicted or had “prejudged” the issue. 

The Princess then issued a second summons on 23 July arguing that it would be a breach of her human rights if the Commissioner dealt with her first summons. On 13 September, she issued a third summons arguing that the Commissioner shouldn’t deal with her second summons either.

All three summons were heard on 20 September by the Commissioner, sitting with Jurats Jerry Ramsden and Charles Blampied.

In an affidavit, the Princess explained she didn’t trust “Jersey as a jurisdiction”, arguing that BNP had been “allowed to pursue” her mother and her despite being allegedly “in breach of trust for its acts/omissions over the Grand Trust”.

Pictured: The Royal Court rejected all three summons.

The judgment explained that during the hearing it became clear that Advocate Mistry was seeking “an order from the Court that the Viscount, as the Court’s Chief Executive Officer, should procure the issuing of a bank guarantee in favour of [the Princess] secured over the sums paid by [the Princess] to the Viscount pursuant to the fine”.

Advocate Mistry told Court his client was seeking protection from the Court against her assets being “attacked” in case her appeal to the Privy Council was successful and BNP sought to claim the money.

Advocate Mistry acknowledged he had unable to find any authority or precedent for the Court entering any such transaction and relied upon the Court’s “inherent jurisdiction” to do so. He argued there was “nothing to stop the Court” from ordering the Viscount to procure a bank guarantee.

The judgment, which was handed down yesterday, noted that it is not “open to litigants to seek to impose upon the Court conditions or requirements on the payment of a fine” and that the Court was not a legal entity which can enter into “commercial transactions”.

It added that Court had struggled to see why there was any “necessity” to order the issuing of a bank guarantee to protect or enforce legal rights, or why it would make it more effective, in the case of the payment of an outstanding fine which the Princess was “obliged to pay”.

They concluded it was “completely inappropriate” for the Princess to make such an application, judging that the relief sought in her first summons was “misconceived” and dismissed all three summons.

“The position therefore is that this Court is being asked by the Respondent to procure a bank guarantee in her favour so that she can avoid any steps that might be taken by the Representor in legitimate pursuit of its rights as a judgement creditor over her assets in Jersey, i.e. the Court is being asked to assist a judgment debtor to avoid the claims of a judgment creditor,” the Court wrote.

“It is being asked to indulge the Respondent’s desire not to have her assets ‘attacked’, when any creditor of hers is entitled to take whatever action is open to it; for a creditor to do so is not an attack, but the legitimate pursuit of the creditor’s rights.”

Pictured: The Princess was seeking a guarantee to prevent her assets being “attacked” in case her appeal to the Privy Council was successful and BNP sought to claim the money.

Advocate Mistry sought permission to appeal the judgment but this application was immediately dismissed by the Commissioner. 

Although he said the decision could be appealed to the Court of Appeal, he asked the lawyer and his client to "reflect and give serious consideration" as to whether it would be right to do so given the Court had considered the summons "misconceived and wholly inappropriate".

The Princess's case has played out in Jersey’s Royal Court over a number of years, and is linked to a landmark judgment in 2017, which ordered that a $200m trust – including assets such as properties and paintings by famous artists – be reconstituted so that her sister, Cristiana, could once again benefit from it.

Cristiana had successfully argued that Princess Camilla and their mother, former film star Edy Vesel, later Edoarda Crociani, had conspired against her.

Camilla Crociani - whose title became Princess de Bourbon de Deux Siciles following her marriage to Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro – was found in contempt of court in October 2019 by failing to properly disclose the location of a $66m Gaugin painting, among other valuable family assets.

The £2m fine was imposed last December because the Royal Court judged that she hadn’t taken the opportunity to fully ‘purge’ that contempt. The Princess argued that she was unable to pay the £2m fine and then appealed that judgment but this was rejected by the Court of Appeal.