Fraud case against prince thrown out

A case involving fraud carried out by a Belgian prince has been dismissed by the Brussels court of appeal, with the loss to the state of €75 million in damages.

Prince Henri de Croÿ-Solre, a member of a family of minor nobles whose family dates its titles back to the 16th century, was convicted in first instance of setting up a so-called cash company run by a straw-man executive which allowed small businesses to sell their equity and then fraudulently borrow back their own money from the cash company while avoiding tax. He was originally sentenced to three years suspended in June last year. According to the Belgian tax authorities, the loss to the treasury was €75 million.

The defence appealed, alleging irregularities. The court of appeal agreed there had been a procedural error in the interviewing of one witness in France, and dismissed the case against the prince in its entirety without ruling on the substance of the case. The finance ministry, which was represented in court, was not given a chance to plead.

The ruling was criticised by Meyrem Almaci (pictured) of the Flemish ecology party Groen as the latest in a line of fraud cases thrown out on procedural grounds. “Because millionaire fraudsters get off scot-free, taxes are higher for the rest of us,” she said. And she called on finance minister Koen Geens to examine whether an appeal against the dismissal before the Cassation Court might be possible under the Antigone doctrine. “This jurisprudence states that procedural irregularities must be weighed in the balance against the gravity of the crimes charged, so that the entire case does not have to be thrown out,” Almaci explained.