Andrew May Be Summoned Over £750,000 Payment as Another York Money Scandal Reaches Court

While Thomas Markle dominates the headlines, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, has quietly landed in another extraordinary legal story of his own.

A High Court judge has cleared the way for former Goldman Sachs banker Selman Turk to call Andrew as a witness in a £40 million fraud trial involving money that flowed to Andrew and other members of the York family. Funny how quickly one scandal can disappear when the press finds another royal-adjacent family to dissect.

Andrew Could Be Summoned to Court

The case was brought by Turkish millionaire Nebahat İşbilen, who says she entrusted Turk with approximately $90 million in assets and accuses him of misappropriating around £40 million through companies and offshore structures under his control.

Judge Adam Johnson has now lifted procedural sanctions that previously prevented Turk from relying on a witness summary concerning Andrew. Turk’s lawyers say they intend to seek a witness summons compelling Andrew to give evidence during the 11-week trial. Andrew has not yet been ordered to appear and would be entitled to challenge any summons.

Judge Johnson was also unusually candid about the likelihood of Andrew volunteering:

“It is highly unlikely that a person in the position of Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor would wish voluntarily to provide a witness statement and give evidence at a trial in public proceedings involving payments made by the wife of a person said to be a political prisoner in Turkey, in connection with a dispute about the reason the payments were made.”

— Judge Adam Johnson, ruling in İşbilen v. Turk and others, High Court of Justice, October 23, 2026

In other words, the court appears to recognise that Andrew is unlikely to walk into this voluntarily. If Turk wants his evidence, a summons may be the only realistic route.

Why Did £750,000 Land in Andrew’s Bank Account?

At the centre of Andrew’s involvement is a £750,000 payment İşbilen transferred directly into his personal Coutts account in November 2019.

İşbilen says Turk told her the money related to assistance Andrew had provided with securing a Turkish passport. Turk disputes that. His case is that İşbilen authorised the payment herself and believed Andrew could potentially help her imprisoned husband. The payment was separately described to bankers as a wedding gift for Princess Beatrice, although court documents did not suggest that Beatrice knew about the transaction.

Andrew returned the money in March 2021 after İşbilen’s lawyers contacted him. And this point matters: Andrew is not accused of fraud in this case and is not a defendant.

But that does not make the circumstances surrounding the payment any less worthy of examination. If £750,000 appears in the personal bank account of a senior royal who previously held an official government trade role, the public is entitled to know why.

And It Was Not Just Andrew

The wider money trail is even more uncomfortable. Earlier court documents and reporting identified approximately £225,000 received by Sarah Ferguson and around £25,000 received by Princess Eugenie through transactions connected to Turk or his businesses. Ferguson said her payment related to money owed to her for ambassadorial work. Eugenie said she knew neither Turk nor İşbilen.

Other reporting has also linked approximately £350,000 in payments to Andrew. None of that proves the York family knowingly received misappropriated money.

But it does mean extraordinary sums later drawn into a major fraud dispute repeatedly appeared around the same royal household. At some point, “another unusual financial arrangement involving the Yorks” stops sounding unusual.

And Sarah Ferguson Has Been Here Before

Sarah Ferguson’s name appearing around questionable money is hardly unprecedented. She previously admitted accepting £15,000 from Jeffrey Epstein toward her debts and described the decision as a serious error of judgment.

Later releases of Epstein correspondence revealed a relationship considerably warmer than that old apology suggested, including messages praising him and asking him to marry her.

Now Sarah’s name also sits in the financial history surrounding the İşbilen litigation. These situations are not legally equivalent, and nobody should pretend they are. But the pattern is difficult to ignore: wealthy benefactors, extraordinary sums of money and the York household somehow keep ending up in the same paragraph.

The Royal Family Has Its Own Strange Relationship With Money

Andrew is not the only Windsor whose financial relationships have attracted uncomfortable questions. Before becoming King, Charles personally received €3 million in cash donations intended for the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund from former Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani.

The money reportedly arrived during private meetings in a suitcase, a holdall and Fortnum & Mason carrier bags before being passed to the charity. There was no finding that the donations were illegal.

There was no finding that the donations were illegal, and the Charity Commission ultimately took no further action. Still, royal money stories have a habit of arriving with enough caveats, intermediaries and extraordinary explanations to make the phrase “nothing improper” feel almost ceremonial.