Nat Rothschild’s yacht fight heads back to the courtroom
NAT ROTHSCHILD and the Monaco boat company he hired to build a superyacht are in court this week to try and resolve a long-running dispute about contract payments.
Rothschild’s investment vehicle Swallowfalls lined up a loan of around €38m (£31.6m) for Monaco Yachting & Technology to build a 240-foot vessel codenamed Project Nato, which the financier first commissioned in 2006.
Swallowfalls wants its money back, claiming Monaco has breached the terms of the project, but the boat builder has argued against this, in a row about whether the yacht had reached the construction milestones needed to trigger repayments. Monaco had also claimed that the disagreements caused delays and extra expense.
The two sides went to arbitration last April to try and thrash out a deal, but it is believed that this process ended in January. They are due to face each other in court in London this week.