How will Prince Andrew pay Virginia Giuffre $13M settlement?
Queen Elizabeth II's second son Prince Andrew on Tuesday settled a civil lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre accusing the prince of sexually abusing her when she was 17.
The settlement means there will be no trial which was scheduled to begin between September and December of 2022.
In a joint statement filed in court on Tuesday, lawyers for Andrew, 61, and Giuffre, 38, said Prince Andrew would make a "substantial donation" to Giuffre's charity in support of victims' rights but they did not disclose the sum of the payment.
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Although the agreement contained no formal admission of liability from Andrew, or an apology, it said he now accepted Miss Roberts was a "victim of abuse" and that he regretted his association with Epstein, the disgraced financier who trafficked countless young girls.
According to several international lawyers, the settlement is likely to cost Andrew $13M (£10M) or more, experts remained uncertain.
The Daily Mail speculated that the Queen could help with costs from her private funds.
Ann Olivarius, senior partner of the McAllister Olivarius law firm who has acted in cases on both sides of the Atlantic, said she expected Prince Andrew's settlement to be worth at least £10m ($13M), based on previous cases settled with wealthy individuals, reports The Guardian.
"The size of the compensation is probably massive by any British standards, and it's probably very substantial by American standards – and American standards are very high," Olivarius said.
Mark Stephens, an international lawyer at Howard Kennedy, said he expected Prince Andrew's settlement to reach around $10M after paying for his own legal fees, using the proceeds from the prince's recent sale of a Swiss chalet, initially valued at $25M but which Stephens believes was sold for a "fire sale" of $18M.
How wealthy is Prince Andrew?
Since leaving the Royal Navy in 2001, the Duke's only known income was the £249,000 a year he received as an allowance from Buckingham Palace for performing royal duties.
This equates to around eight times the average UK salary of £31,285.
However, his royal duties came to a grinding halt in November 2019, after the infamous Newsnight interview about his alleged friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Prince Andrew receives a pension reported to be £20,000 a year from the Navy.
The prince previously received an annual allowance from the Queen but it is unknown whether he still receives that.
In 2007, he sold the home he had shared with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, Sunninghill Park, for £14.4 million.
The couple were given the property as a wedding present from the Queen after tying the knot in 1986 and it was sold to Timor Kulibayev, son-in-law to the president of Kazakhstan 21 years later.
Prince Andrew and Ms Ferguson currently live at Royal Lodge, a Grade II-listed house in Windsor which was formerly home to the Queen Mother.
Prince Andrew has enjoyed a lavish lifestyle with holidays in St Tropez and a range of other destinations frequented by the rich and famous.
It was in 2014 that he snapped up his £13 million chalet in Verbier, which has seven bedrooms, a swimming pool, sauna and sun terrace.
And, in 2021, he was seen attending Prince Philip's funeral in a new £220,000 Flying Spur Bentley, which he had resprayed in racing green.
The Duke's friendship with multimillionaire conservative donor and financier David Rowland is frequently brought up in conversations around his financial situation.
Companies linked to Mr Rowland reportedly paid off a £1.5M personal loan that Andrew took out in 2017.
The Mail on Sunday previously reported that Mr Rowland helped pay off some of Ms Ferguson's debts – believed to be around £5m – in 2011, two years after Andrew was a guest of honour at Banque Havilland's official opening.
The same paper claimed in 2019 that the Duke is involved in a business venture with Mr Rowland in a Caribbean tax haven.
Regarding these reports, a spokesperson for Andrew told The Guardian in November last year, "We don't intend to comment on the veracity or otherwise of the string of assertions you have put to us, other than to state that the Duke is entitled to a degree of privacy in conducting his entirely legitimate personal financial affairs, on which all appropriate accounting measures are undertaken and all taxes duly paid."
How has the lawsuit affected Andrew?
The allegations have done significant damage to the prince's reputation. Buckingham Palace in January said Andrew would no longer be known as "His Royal Highness" after losing his royal and military links, and said he was defending the Giuffre case as a private citizen.
Andrew had already stepped down from public duties days after a November 2019 interview with the BBC in which critics said he failed to address key questions about his ties to Epstein.
Despite the settlement, it was unlikely that Andrew would return to public duties, said British royal biographer Penny Junor.
Andrew does not face any other pending civil lawsuits in US federal courts.
