A former City lawyer must pay a Saudi princess £30 million after a judge ruled that he spent her invested funds on a yacht.
Ronald Gibbs claimed that his life was “destroyed” by a protracted legal dispute with members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family over his alleged management since 2011 of a £19.8 million investment fund for Princess Deema Bint Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
The funds were earmarked for a property purchase in Paris, but when the princess changed her mind, Gibbs — a former partner at Linklaters, one of the City’s elite international law firms — instead invested the cash in assets all over the world, including a 40-metre superyacht valued at £17 million, London properties and a £2.8 million flat in Montenegro.
