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By a judgment dated 16 March 2018 Mr Justice Arnold has dismissed Mrs Harb’s long-running contractual claim against HRH Prince Abdul Aziz.

Issued in 2009, by Mrs Harb’s trustee in bankruptcy, the claim alleged that an oral agreement was concluded between Mrs Harb and the Prince whereby he agreed to pay her £12 million and to procure the transfer to her of two flats in Chelsea, London. After the Prince’s unsuccessful attempt to rely on sovereign immunity (see the judgments of Rose J and the Court of Appeal at [2014] EWHC 1807 (Ch) [2014] 1 WLR 4437 and [2015] EWCA Civ 481 [2016] Ch 308, respectively) the claim was heard by Mr Justice Peter Smith in 2015. Although he upheld the claim ([2015] EWHC 3155 (Ch)), this was successfully challenged on appeal by the Prince. 

The Court of Appeal ordered a re-trial: [2016] EWCA Civ 556 [2016] 3 FCR 194. The re-trial took place in February 2018. The resulting judgment, dated 16 March, is available here

Ian Mill QC and Shaheed Fatima QC represented the Prince.  

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