Princess Camilla of Bourbon-Sicilies has placed on account funds to discharge the entirety of the two million pound fine ordered by a Jersey court in civil proceedings. Princess Camilla requests in return that the court guarantees her reimbursement in the event that she wins her appeal in “the Privy Council” of London and possibly the European Court of Human Rights, if matters are appealed at a later stage.
Princess Camilla disputes this decision both in substance and in form. In relation to the substance of the finding of the Jersey court she says “I was convicted of contempt of court because when I was asked where my mother’s assets were, I said I didn’t know. This is the truth. By convicting me, the court reversed the burden of proof: how do you prove that you don’t know something? “.
On the form/consequences of the erroneous finding of the Jersey court, Princess Camilla is surprised as “never, has a fine of such an amount been imposed on a private individual for a civil contempt in Jersey or in the United Kingdom”. It should be noted that evidence was put before the Jersey Court on the fines imposed by other courts and the highest recorded fine, for a civil contempt was £100,000.
Princess Camilla hopes that this clarification will lead to some form of media appeasement, where she is complying with orders of the Jersey court, whilst exercising her legal rights to challenge this unjust decision.
More generally Princess Camilla says: “I have no lessons to learn from a bank – BNP-Paribas – which has paid a fine of US $140 million and ordered to forfeit US $ 8.89 billion for violating US embargoes against Sudan, Cuba and Iran, for which it pleaded guilty in the American courts ”. The American court . The sanctions ignored were BNP Paribas were imposed by the US for the sanctioned county’s “complicity in crimes against humanity, genocide and acts of torture and barbarism” in Sudan and another for its alleged role in the financing of the genocide in Rwanda.
Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that Princess Camilla continues to assert her rights in the courts and tribunals of Monaco, France and the United Kingdom against BNP Paribas, the main protagonist in this series of litigation. Faced with judicial harassment carried out against her by BNP Paribas, a professional trustee of the family trust, which was found to be in breach of its obligations, proceedings are pending against this leading French bank, which could result in a payment to Princess Camilla in the aggregate sum of more than 330 million euros.
History
Created by Camillo Crociani, Compagnia Italiana Servizi Tecnici (CISET) in 1970 and specializing in civil and military air traffic management, CISET was bought by his widow, Edoarda Crociani, who made it a flagship of Italian industry. In 1992, it merged with Vitroselenia, a company working in defense logistics since the 1960s, to become the highly innovative Vitrociset.
Large industrial maneuvers prompted Edoarda Crociani to be cautious. At the end of the eighties, while living in New York with her two teenage daughters, she created a trust to protect her fortune and that of her two then teenage daughters, Camilla and Cristiana and ensured that a mechanism of protection of the heritage and interests of underage girls be put in place to secure their future.
Following the advice of eminent specialists, the trust migrated from the Bahamas to Guernsey before finally landing in Jersey where it was managed by Paribas which later became BNP Paribas.
According to an obscure operation specific to trusts, BNP Jersey manages the trust while the assets are in the books of BNP Switzerland, the whole being closely supervised by the parent company BNP Paris.
An arrangement so complex that BNP comes to understand that it is becoming “problematic” and could expose its responsibility. In 2005, the French banker therefore developed a strategy that would be more favorable to him.
In November 2018, after realizing the extent of the fraud committed by BNP, Mrs. Crociani and her daughter Camilla filed a complaint against BNP for fraud, breach of trust, forgery and use of forgery. These complaints are the subject of an ongoing judicial investigation in Monaco. BNP’s ploy to exonerate itself from its liability is also undermined in Paris and Monaco where the bank failed to make the Jersey judgment enforceable.
Meanwhile, still on the basis of the judgment of September 11, 2017, BNP changes target: after having unsuccessfully tried, by all means, to recover an amount of 130 million euros from Madame Crociani, it turned against Princess Camilla. The French bank is now trying, before the courts of Curaçao and Jersey to make him guarantee his responsibility.
In April 2021, discovering that BNP was now trying to make her responsible for the swindle of which she was a victim, Princess Camilla appealed to French justice to condemn BNP to compensate her for the damage that the bank caused her and is claiming from BNP nearly 120 million euros (this is in addition to other pending proceedings which summed up bring to a total claim towards BNP which exceeds 330 million euros.)
This is not the first time that BNP, having poorly advised its clients, has subsequently turned against them in various jurisdictions. History undoubtedly to camouflage its responsibilities.
