Frederick Barclay received £800,000 to settle Ritz espionage case, court told

theguardian.com:

Sir Frederick Barclay received £800,000 from his nephews for settling a legal battle over alleged “commercial espionage on a vast scale” that included bugging of thousands of his private conversations at the five-star Ritz hotel, a court was told.

It also emerged in the high court on Tuesday that the feud played out between two sides of the Barclay family, which owns the Telegraph media group as well as Yodel and Shop Direct, cost the businessman and his daughter Amanda £7.5m in legal fees.

In questioning Sir Frederick’s lawyer, Stewart Leech QC, acting for Sir Frederick’s ex-wife, Lady Hiroko, in a contempt case that could see the 87-year-old billionaire go to prison, said: “At the end of litigation that cost Amanda and your client £7.5m, there was to be £800,000. So not a lot of return for 7.5m pounds.”

Marcus Dearle, who is giving evidence in the case on behalf of Sir Frederick because of his age and health, did not respond.

At issue in the hearing is why Sir Frederick has not paid the £100m he was ordered to pay his wife of 34 years in a divorce settlement awarded in March 2021.

Sir Frederick’s lawyers have argued that they have been unable to raise the funds. Mr Leech read out evidence that at the heart of the case were “both” liquidity issues resulting from heavily indebted or “highly leveraged underlying businesses” and the “nephews cutting off funds”.

Despite this, the sons of Sir Frederick’s late twin brother, Sir David Barclay, Aidan, Howard and Alistair, have so far contributed almost £1m to their uncle’s divorce battle after his daughter, who holds a stake worth 25% in the family businesses, stopped funding her father’s defence.

Although not parties to the divorce, the nephews applied to have much of the case to be