Harrods is preparing to take legal action against the estate of its former owner, Mohamed al-Fayed, as the multimillion-pound legal bill for compensating his sexual abuse victims continues to escalate.
Sky News has learnt that the Knightsbridge department store, which has been owned by a Qatari sovereign wealth fund since 2010, plans to file a so-called passing-over application in the High Court as early as next week.
The intention of the application is to secure the removal of Mr al-Fayed‘s estate’s current executors, and replace them with professional executors to administer it instead.
Professional executors would be expected to investigate the assets and liabilities of the estate, while Harrods insiders claimed that the current executors – thought to be close family members of the deceased billionaire – had “ignored” correspondence from its lawyers.
Sources close to Harrods said the passing-over application paved the way for it to potentially seek to recover substantial sums from the estate of the Egyptian tycoon as it contends with a compensation bill likely to run to tens of millions of pounds.
In a statement issued to Sky News on Saturday, a Harrods spokesperson said: “We are considering legal options that would ensure that no doors are closed on any future action and that a route to compensation and accountability from the Fayed estate remains open to all.”
Mr al-Fayed is believed to have raped or sexually abused hundreds of women during his 25-year tenure as the owner of Harrods.
He died in 2023, since when a torrent of details of his abuse have been made public by many of his victims.
Earlier this year, Sky News revealed details of the compensation scheme designed by Harrods to award six-figure sums to women he abused.
In a form outlining the details of the Harrods redress scheme overseen by MPL Legal, which is advising the department store, it referred to the potential “for Harrods to recover compensation paid out under this…
