Out-of-court settlement: Can Prince Andrew even raise the amount agreed with Giuffre?

Much later, Prince Andrew could not have pulled the ripcord.

After the lawsuit brought by the American Virginia Roberts Giuffre for sexual abuse and rape in August, the federal court in New York a few weeks ago not only rejected the royal's request for dismissal.

At the beginning of February, the court also scheduled a hearing for the 61-year-old prince in London: for March 10, under oath and by Giuffre's lawyers.

Then, by mid-May, both parties should call their witnesses for the trial.

The celebrations for his mother, Queen Elizabeth II's 70th jubilee, which threatened to be overshadowed by the allegations, are said to have accelerated the agreement between the Duke of York and his alleged victim again.

On Tuesday, the plaintiff and the defendant let the Manhattan court know that they had agreed to an undisclosed amount in damages.

Prince Andrew also agreed to donate to a charity for victims of sexual violence that the 38-year-old founded a few years ago.

What happened in 2001 between Prince Andrew and the then underage Giuffre remains fragmentary for the time being.

Both parties agreed on Tuesday "a period of calm".

Giuffre, an alleged victim of New York sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his confidante Ghislaine Maxwell, had repeatedly outlined the allegations against the nobleman in recent years.

Prince Andrew is said to have forced the then 17-year-old American to have sex three times after being mediated by Epstein and Maxwell, a friend of the Royal's from college - in Maxwell's house in London, Epstein's townhouse in Manhattan and on the Caribbean island of Little Saint James.

In an interview with the BBC in autumn 2019, the Queen's son denied the allegations.

The Duke of York continues to refuse hearings by the New York State Attorney's Office and the US Federal Police.

Many observers of the trial doubt that the American judicial authorities will now be content with the civil settlement.

A chalet for sale in Switzerland?

The joint statement by the prince and his alleged victim, which excluded the amount of damages, also gave rise to speculation.

The New York Post reported at least $12 million that Giuffre and her aid organization are expected to receive over the next 30 days.

British media estimates range from almost eight to 15 million euros.

It is also unclear how he raises this sum.

However, in January he finally paid off a Swiss property, the Chalet Helora, which he bought in 2014 for himself and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson from a then-girlfriend for around 22 million euros.

By January of this year, the second eldest son of the British Queen owed the then owner, Isabelle de Rouvre, an amount in dispute of around 7.6 million euros.

However, it is questionable whether Prince Andrew will pay the amount that he will probably have to transfer to the plaintiff.

And whether he can do this, since Andrew is said to have other unpaid bills.

It could well be that his mother will give him additional support.

However, the impression that Elizabeth II is immeasurably rich given her palaces, jewels and art collections is misleading.

According to Forbes, all of this together should be worth an estimated 90 billion euros.

But the monarch only has access to most of it, but she can hardly monetize any of it because it is inalienable.

In 2020, the Queen, with an estimated private fortune of around 430 million euros, was far behind at number 372 of the richest Britons.

Most of the money the Queen gets comes from the Sovereign Grant, which stipulates that the monarch is entitled to 15 percent of the proceeds from the Crown Estate, which is everything the monarch is entitled to as the head of state of the kingdom , but cannot sell them.

The Crown Estate includes more than 250,000 hectares of land, including fields and forests around Windsor Castle, offshore wind farms and Regent Street in London.

In 2020, the Queen was entitled to around 105 million euros, almost two thirds of which she needed for official representation duties and the royal household, almost a third gobbled up the ongoing renovation work on Buckingham Palace, which in ten years had already cost 450 million euros and was therefore significantly more than expected have tasted.

However, the Queen also has private properties, including 50,000 hectares of land at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and 20,000 hectares at Sandringham House in Norfolk.

And then there's the Duchy of Lancaster, with holdings in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire and Lincolnshire, among others, and several companies, notably on Strand in central London.

The Duchy of Lancaster was one of the Queen's main sources of income in 2020/21 at €26m (about €4.3m less than in the previous 12 months).

She is said to have recently supported her son, Prince Andrew, from this, since as a member of the royal family who had fallen out of favor, he could otherwise no longer get any money from official sources.

All in all, Elizabeth II's fortune is rather manageable, especially when you compare the fixed costs with the income, which collapsed massively during Corona, also because, for example, there were no tourists for the royal palaces and collections.