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Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor agreed to help negotiate an $8bn cash-for-oil swap between a Chinese sovereign wealth fund and the rulers of the United Arab Emirates during an official visit to China, according to recently released emails.
Mountbatten-Windsor and David Stern, a banker with whom the former prince worked closely, exchanged multiple messages about the plan with Jeffrey Epstein, starting while the disgraced financier was still under house arrest for soliciting sex from an underage girl.
Files released by the US Department of Justice show Mountbatten-Windsor pledged to pursue the secret deal during “private days” at the start of an official, taxpayer-funded trip as a UK special trade representative to China in September 2010.
His efforts followed requests from an Abu Dhabi-based investment banker for help in securing the highly sensitive deal, both through Mountbatten-Windsor’s contacts with the government in China and through his relationship with senior figures in the UAE’s leadership.
The emails show those involved hoped to raise the money from the China Investment Corporation, a state-backed fund that invests overseas. There is no evidence that CIC became involved in or knew of the proposed deal.
Mountbatten-Windsor pursued the deal while a special representative for UK trade and investment, a post he held between 2001 and 2011. While unpaid, the role involved extensive travel, funded from the royal travel budget, which parliament heard in May 2011 had by that point amounted to £4mn.
Mountbatten-Windsor — who was stripped of his title “prince” by his brother King Charles last year — regularly added “private days” on to his official visits, ensuring that he frequently had time to pursue his own business and leisure interests overseas with travel funded from public resources.
The UK’s Thames Valley Police last week said it was assessing evidence to decide whether to launch a full investigation against Mountbatten-Windsor for misconduct in public office following revelations over his conduct while in the role.
Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied any financial or sexual wrongdoing arising from his links with Epstein and his circle.
Epstein was found dead in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex charges. He was previously convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from an underage girl.
The idea for the cash-for-oil swap was suggested to Mountbatten-Windsor by Terence Allen, a banker based in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, at a time when the global financial crisis was putting substantial pressure on the finances of Dubai, the second most powerful of the seven emirates.
Allen envisaged that China would provide $8bn in funding to the UAE, with the loan repaid over five to seven years in exports to China of Abu Dhabi’s oil.
Mountbatten-Windsor told Allen in an email in July 2010 that he was co-ordinating his trip to China with Stern and that the banker was helping him “as to the way to engage in China”.
“The idea that you write about he has mentioned to me but only in passing and from what I remember he was excited about it and we could work on this in September whilst there,” Mountbatten-Windsor wrote. “I have some private days prior to the official programme starting.”
Allen had previously stressed that he needed access to the top Chinese leadership to make the proposed transaction work.
In an email that Stern forwarded to Epstein in late June 2010, Allen wrote that communication with Beijing needed to be at “the senior most level”. Epstein was released from home detention following his 2008 conviction in July 2010.
While Allen claimed in one email to be on the brink of winning official approval to pursue the loan, there is no proof that UAE officials ever endorsed the loan plan.
The China-UAE deal is one of several potential transactions that Mountbatten-Windsor discussed with Allen in the email exchange in July 2010.
The pair also discussed a potential loan of $3bn from Colonel Muammer Gaddafi’s Libyan government to the UAE, a potential approach by the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund for the UK’s Aston Martin carmaker and the future of RBS, the then state-controlled UK bank.
Mountbatten-Windsor also mentioned the financial problems then facing his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, an issue with which Allen said he wanted to help.
Allen wrote: “I envisage some exciting times ahead.”
There are no explicit discussions in the emails of payments to Mountbatten-Windsor for his role in facilitating any deal.
There is no evidence that any of the transactions discussed between Allen, Stern, Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein went ahead.
Allen and Mountbatten-Windsor did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Stern could not be reached for comment.