She didn't ask any more than he gave. It was negotiated between their legal representatives.
There were reports at the time that her initial request was over £40 million. Of course a compromise was negotiated between their legal representatives; that's part of their job.
That's not however what the accountant is being quoted most prominently on. Or why some people jumped on what he said to initially create threads on this forum. They seized on the fact that he emphasized that the PoW had somehow been "taken to the cleaners" which is nonsense.
Being taken to the cleaners isn't necessarily the same as being left impoverished. The accountant said he'd had to liquidate all his investments to put toward the settlement; the accountant felt that was excessive. People might disagree with him, but he's entitled to his opinion. If he's being incorrectly quoted, that's a good reason for people to go and read the original Telegraph report in order to see what he really was saying. A.C.C. has provided a link to it.
The accountant is indeed inferring he was somehow made destitute, impoverished, ground into penury, etc. afaik.
Where in the Telegraph report does it say that? The accountant said that Charles had to give up his investments in order to pay toward the settlement and to borrow from the Queen for at least some of the balance. He doesn't say anthing about destitution or penury. He said that the Prince had no personal wealth left. That's different, because the Prince still had his Duchy assets and income.
We don't hear talk about being taken to the cleaners in the present even though that suite of hers at Clarence House must have run into several of the millions of the fourteen plus millions he racked up.
According to reports, he spent about two and a half million pounds on refurbishing the private apartments at Clarence House. What is this 14 million you're talking about?
As to his spending level, I don't note that the PoW cut back in any of his public or private expenses in the intervening years. If his spending level did decrease, I'm sure his overly vocal accountant and friends would have trumpeted that for you long ere since.
I don't suppose any of us who don't know him are in a position to know much about his private spending. However, I've already mentioned one area where his expenditure would have decreased, which is that he was no longer paying his wife's expenses.
How do you know it was authorised by the Prince's office?
How do you know it wasn't?
I don't know one way or the other; I'm not the one making the claim. You seem to think that this is an authorised disclosure, and I'm asking about the basis for that.
It has more to do in this instance than the mere fact of book sales (I don't see where the man is selling a book either).
If you read the Telegraph article, it says he's written a book and was being interviewed by the Telegraph in advance of its publication.
"Mr Bignell was interviewed by the Telegraph last week ahead of the publication of his memoirs, Sundowners at Dawn: a Banker's Tale - where he makes only a fleeting reference to his crucial role because, he said, he did not want to "cash in" on his royal links."
Some people have debts to pay back and nests to feather. Jephson was one, Junor was one. There's an agenda beyond mere book sales figures with some people.
I'm sure there is. However, I wasn't talking about just the money, I said that this stuff sells. Whatever the reason why Patrick Jephson and Penny Junor wrote their books, whether financial or not, large sales and a lot of publicity are favourable. Most people don't write books in the hope of not selling many of them.
