In brief: The Privy Council has rejected Italian Princess Camilla de Bourbon des Deux Siciles’ final attempt to overturn a £1m contempt of court fine imposed by Jersey’s Royal Court. The appeal was dismissed as “totally without merit,” leaving the princess facing potential imprisonment if she fails to pay. The case stems from a long-running dispute over a trust fund once estimated to be worth more than $130 million.
A Princess, a Picasso-rivalling Gauguin and a Jersey Trust
It reads like the plot of a European art-house thriller, and not without reason. The Jersey Evening Post reports that Princess Camilla de Bourbon des Deux Siciles, a 55-year-old Italian socialite, now faces the very real prospect of a prison term in Jersey after exhausting her legal options at the highest available court of appeal.
The roots of the case stretch back to a family trust governed by Jersey law, previously estimated to be worth more than $130 million. The Royal Court found that the princess’s mother, Edoarda Crociani, a 1960s film star who appeared in Federico Fellini’s celebrated 1963 film “8 1/2”, had effectively plundered the trust to the disadvantage of her other daughter, Cristiana, by transferring the $130 million to herself and Princess Camilla. Among the assets in question was a Paul Gauguin painting valued at $66 million.
The trust was subsequently reconstituted, and in December 2018 a disclosure order was granted requiring Princess Camilla to reveal the whereabouts of assets held by her mother. The order carried a penal notice making clear that non-compliance could result in up to 12 months’ imprisonment. The princess ignored it.
Contempt Described as “Wilfully Disobedient and Flagrant”
In 2019, the Royal Court found Princess Camilla in contempt for repeatedly defying the disclosure order. She was eventually ordered to pay a £2 million fine. A global settlement was later reached, and the trust formally renounced its interest in pursuing enforcement of the contempt sanction. The princess then sought to be discharged from contempt entirely.
The Royal Court was having none of it. Sir Timothy Le Cocq, sitting with Jurats Hughes and Opfermann, ruled that there is “a high public interest in the Court enforcing its orders.” The judgment described Princess Camilla’s contempt as “both contumacious and egregious in the sense that it has been wilfully disobedient, flagrant and continuing.” The court concluded that it “would not appear to us to be just, that she is simply able to walk away from that contempt merely because she has reached a compromise with the plaintiff.”
The court determined that for the contempt to be discharged, the princess would need to go a “meaningful way to purge it” by paying a reduced fine of £1 million, with a term of imprisonment to follow in the event of default.
The Privy Council Slams the Door
Princess Camilla appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the final court of appeal for the Crown Dependencies. That appeal was rejected on 10 April 2026. The JCPC confirmed that the Royal Court had jurisdiction to order discharge from contempt “only on payment of a fine and subject to a term of imprisonment in the event of default.”
Undeterred, the princess then sought permission to appeal that decision. In a judgment published on 14 October, the Privy Council refused. “The permission to appeal should be REFUSED as the application does not raise an arguable point of law,” the judgment stated, adding that it was “totally without merit.” The JCPC’s decision was relayed to Deputy Bailiff Mark Temple during a Samedi Division hearing in the Royal Court on Friday 30 October.
With every avenue of appeal now closed, Princess Camilla faces a stark choice: pay the £1 million fine, or face imprisonment in Jersey.
Source: Jersey Evening Post
