The British Court has archived the lawsuit that Corinna Larsen filed against King Juan Carlos, in which she asked him for 146 million euros for harassment. The decision was made known this Friday, October 6, and ends a judicial process that has lasted more than a year. “My main conclusion is that the High Court of England and Wales lacks jurisdiction to hear this claim. This is because it has not been brought against the defendant in his country of domicile, as is his default right; and the claimant “has not convinced me that he has strong and defensible arguments that his claim falls within an exception to that predetermined rule,” the judge, Collins Rice, notes in the ruling.
Given this, Corinna has been “deeply disappointed” by the judge’s decision, who also concludes that “if she had had the capacity to judge this case, she would have dismissed it for several reasons”, among them, she alludes to the “inconsistency” of its arguments and the numerous version changes. For Corinna, “it is disheartening to see that victims of harassment often struggle to find justice,” she lamented in a statement sent by her spokesperson. According to her, “harassment has a profound and lasting impact on people and it is crucial that our legal processes provide adequate resources to those who have suffered it.”
Despite the ruling of the London Court, Corinna insists on her argument. “The intimidation towards me and my children continues and aims to completely destroy me. Juan Carlos has unleashed his entire arsenal to wear me down and the extent of his power is immense.”
As EL MUNDO has learned, King Juan Carlos is happy with the thoroughness of the sentence, which over 92 pages rejects each argument one by one. The legal team of the Emeritus has issued a statement in which they assure that “although His Majesty Juan Carlos regrets the expenditure of energy and resources that this complaint has entailed, he is nevertheless pleased with the decision of the Superior Court of Justice, which , as expected, confirms his innocence.”
“In order to allow the courts to continue their work in complete serenity, His Majesty has voluntarily exercised maximum discretion throughout the trial and has therefore refrained from making any public comments,” they recall. However, Felipe VI’s father anticipates that the sentence “reestablishes the necessary conditions for new public appearances.”
Corinna Larsen filed the complaint for the behavior that, according to her lawyers and her testimony, King Juan Carlos and his entourage had against her after their breakup. A demand that varied up to eleven times, adding or modifying nuances. The first thing the court had to resolve was whether the actions denounced by Corinna could be tried or whether Don Juan Carlos had immunity. The Emeritus’ lawyers got the Court to conclude that her actions between 2012 and June 18, 2014 do not belong to the “private sphere.”
Last July, the first hearing of the trial was held, where Don Juan Carlos’ lawyers refuted one by one all the arguments of the former Danish princess, who, once criminal proceedings had been ruled out, requested compensation of 146 million euros through civil. At that time, the legal team of Felipe VI’s father spoke of “blackmail” by her former lover and influenced the numerous changes in her versions.
Defamation expert Adam Wollanski, who led Juan Carlos I’s defense in the final stretch, argued that the case had no “real prospects” of succeeding before British justice and highlighted the plaintiff’s contradictions about what happened in the years of her romantic relationship and the lack of evidence to support the accusation of harassment. In his last and decisive intervention, the lawyer used the word blackmail (“blackmail”) twice when illustrating Corinna’s attitude and emphasized how her accusations changed, against factions within the Royal House, against the National Center for Intelligence (CNI) or against its former director Félix Sanz Roldán, to end up personalizing his allegations against Juan Carlos himself.
The emeritus had already achieved a partial victory before the courts by achieving “immunity” for all the events that occurred until his abdication on June 18, 2014. Juan Carlos I had the consecutive services of three law firms in London: Velitor Law , Clifford Chance and Carter-Ruck.
