A decision on whether Prince Andrew will see a sexual assault case against him dismissed in the USA is expected ‘very soon’.
The Judge presiding over the hearing appeared to slap down the Duke of York’s lawyer at one point during proceedings on Tuesday.
Andrew faces a nervous wait to discover whether he will face a trial for sexual assault against Virginia Giuffre.
The Queen’s son’s legal team say his accuser waived her right to sue him when she signed a £370,000 settlement agreement with his friend Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew’s lawyer, Andrew B Brettler, argued during a video conference hearing that the confidential agreement Ms Giuffre entered into with the late convicted paedophile Epstein ended her right to pursue anyone else.
Ms Giuffre claims Epstein trafficked her to have sex with the duke.
Andrew denies all the allegations.
The document, made public on Monday, detailed how Andrew’s accuser received a $500,000 payout in 2009 and agreed to ‘release, acquit, satisfy and forever discharge’ disgraced financier Epstein and “’ny other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant’.
The duke’s lawyer branded the claim for damages brought by Ms Giuffre as ‘unfair and unjust’.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan told the parties at the conclusion of the hearing convened to hear arguments about dismissing the civil lawsuit that he would have a decision ‘very soon’.
The duke’s lawyer claimed there was a lack of information supporting the allegations made against Andrew, which he suggested should be disclosed now and not after a request for information from the royal known as discovery.
He said: ‘Ms Giuffre needs to lock herself into a story now.
‘Not sometime in the future after she conducts discovery and figures out where the chips may fall… she needs to allege in her complaint against Prince Andrew when he supposedly abused her – I’d like even a date, a month.’
But Judge Kaplan replied: ‘With all due respect, Mr Brettler, that’s not a dog that’s got a hunt here’ and added that she had no obligation to do so.
During the hearing there was also legal discussion about the meaning of ‘potential defendant’, with Mr Brettler telling Judge Kaplan it was ‘someone who was not named as a defendant but could have been’.
The lawyer added that a potential defendant would be someone Ms Giuffre, also known as Virginia Roberts, knew that she had ‘claims against at the time that she filed the lawsuit# in 2009 against disgraced financier Epstein, whose former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted last week of procuring teenage girls for him.
In response the judge said ‘potential’ was a word in which neither he nor Mr Brettler could ‘find any meaning at all’.
Mr Brettler said about the settlement: ‘I don’t know who would be included in other potential defendants – if it weren’t all of the other people who… Giuffre alleged abused her.
‘She could have sued them and she did not and therefore she waived her rights to sue them when she entered into the 2009 release agreement and accepted the money from Mr Epstein.
‘She did not return that money when she decided to file this lawsuit.’
Ms Giuffre is suing the Queen’s son for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager. She is seeking unspecified damages, but there is speculation the sum could be millions of dollars.
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She claims she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was aged 17 and a minor under US law.
Concluding his arguments, the duke’s lawyer said the case against his client should ‘absolutely be dismissed’.
The lawyer acting on behalf of Ms Giuffre, David Boies, told the virtual court hearing of the Southern District of New York, only the parties of the settlement agreement, Epstein and Ms Giuffre and their associates, could benefit from it, and not a ‘third party’ like Andrew.
He said: ‘Any third party beneficiary rights would have to be asserted by the parties of the contract and could not be asserted by a potential defendant.’
Mr Boies added: ‘Prince Andrew could not do it, the only person who could assert this release in this case, would be Epstein.’
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