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The Vatican had reason to feel “utterly let down” by a financier involved in an ill-fated UK property deal on which the Roman Catholic Church lost more than £100mn, a London court has found.
Raffaele Mincione had launched the action against the Holy See in an effort to clear his name following his December 2023 conviction for embezzlement and money-laundering by the Vatican Tribunal.
Mincione, who is appealing against his Vatican Tribunal conviction and associated five-and-a-half year prison sentence, was a key figure in the Vatican’s acquisition of a former Harrods showroom in London. The church spent more than €350mn on the property between 2014 and 2018.
The scheme’s backers intended to redevelop the site into luxury apartments but the project never obtained planning permission.
In his civil action against the Holy See, filed in 2020 after the deal went sour, Mincione had sought several declarations from the High Court in London. They included a finding that he and his companies had acted in “good faith”.
In his 50-page ruling on Friday, Mr Justice Robin Knowles granted several of Mincione’s claims, rejecting “particular allegations of dishonesty and particular allegations of conspiracy”.
But he added that the Vatican — an institution run by clerics and theologians lacking any financial expertise — had reason to consider itself “utterly let down in its experience” with the financier.
For Mincione to have stated that the value of the property was £275mn was “not frank” and “at least without elaboration, misleading”, the judge found.
In a statement after Friday’s ruling, the Holy See said the English court’s ruling represented “a significant vindication” of the church’s position that it had been wronged by a person in whom it had placed its faith.
The businessman nevertheless claimed victory, saying the judge had found he had not been “dishonest” or taken part in “any conspiracy or fraud” as part of his dealings.
“I hope the judgment can lay to rest once and for all claims that I am dishonest, or a fraudster, or a criminal,” Mincione said in a statement.
The Holy See realised a loss of more than £100mn in 2022 when it sold the property in Chelsea — one of London’s wealthiest neighbourhoods — to private equity group Bain Capital.
The significant loss led to a broad review of the way the Catholic Church handles its finances.
Mincione was one of seven defendants — including one of the Vatican’s most powerful former officials, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu — convicted in 2023 by the Vatican court for their roles in the contentious property deal.
The unprecedented criminal conviction of a cardinal and others involved in the deal was seen as part of Pope Francis’ attempt to bring greater accountability to the church and improve the management of its finances.
Mincione’s London lawsuit was initially filed in 2020, prior to the Vatican trial, as church authorities were carrying out their own investigation into the vexed deal and what had gone on.
Pope Francis’ chief of staff, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, testified during the civil trial last July.